Application of Penthouse Intern. Ltd.

• Decision Date: 10 November 1977
• Docket Number: No. 77-524.,77-524.
• Citation: 565 F.2d 679
• Parties: Application of PENTHOUSE INTERNATIONAL LTD.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

565 F.2d 679

Application of PENTHOUSE INTERNATIONAL LTD.

No. 77-524.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

November 10, 1977.

Stevan J. Bosses, New York City, Watson, Leavenworth, Kelton & Taggart, New York City, attorneys of record, for appellant.

Joseph F. Nakamura, Washington, D. C., for the Commissioner of Patents; Fred W. Sherling, Washington, D. C., of counsel.

Before MARKEY, Chief Judge, RICH, BALDWIN, and LANE, Judges, and MORGAN FORD, Judge, United States Customs Court.

MARKEY, Chief Judge.

Appeal from a decision of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirming the trademark examiner's final refusal to register applicant's mark. We reverse.

Background

Appellant Penthouse International Ltd. (Penthouse) seeks to register on the Principle Register, for items of jewelry, including cuff links, tie fasteners, key rings, bracelets and pendants, in former U.S. Class 28, this stylized key logo:

Penthouse's parent application sought registration for goods in former U.S. Classes 22, 28, and 38. The parent application was split into two divisional applications. The application for puzzles in class 22 and posters in class 38 was published for opposition and registration No. 1,028,209 issued thereon. This appeal involves the divisional application.

Penthouse filed another application, serial No. 441,194, for registration of a mark comprising three of the present stylized key logos vertically aligned. The specimens there submitted were boxes bearing the mark. Registration No. 990,635 issued August 13, 1974 on that application. The goods there involved included jewelry charms bearing the triple key design.

The specimens in the present case were bracelets to which three-dimensional embodiments of the mark were affixed as charms. The examiner deemed the specimens incapable of showing trademark use and refused registration under § 2 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052, stating:

Designs of jewelry are considered to be functional in nature because it is the design of the jewelry that appeals to purchasers, and a particular piece of jewelry is purchased because of its design. Thus * * * the jewelry design would not be regarded as an indication of origin in applicant, but rather would be a design whose attractiveness and eye-appeal "sell" the goods. Citation omitted.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (board), following the same reasoning, affirmed the examiner's refusal to register.

Citing In re Olin Corp., 181 USPQ 182 (TTAB 1973), Penthouse contends that ornamentation of a special nature which inherently signifies to purchasers the secondary source of the goods, rather than the source of manufacture, is registrable, even though it may also create a desire to purchase. Penthouse also contends that there is no statutory basis for refusal to register, because the mark falls within the ambit of § 2's preamble, and no registration-precluding subsection applies.

Issue

The issue is whether Penthouse is entitled to registration of its mark for the listed goods, when the submitted specimens are pendants in the form of a three-dimensional embodiment of the mark.

OPINION

The statute, and much of the case law, relating to trademarks is oriented toward use of a mark in connection with goods which do not (and most could not) take the form of the mark. However, the Lanham Act nowhere excludes trademark registration in the circumstances of the present case. The definition section of the Act, § 45, 15 U.S.C. § 1127, defines "trademark" as including "any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others."

In In re McIlhenny Co., 278 F.2d 953, 955, 47 CCPA 985, 988, 126 USPQ 138, 140 (1960) a case involving registrability of a bottle configuration for the contents of the bottle, this court said:

Under the Lanham Act, "any word, name, symbol or device or any combination thereof" which is distinctive per se and identifies an applicant's goods and which does not fall within one of the prohibitions of section 2 is entitled to registration on the Principal Register, assuming, of course, procedural requirements are fulfilled. * * *

* * * * * *

* * * Without an applicant's fulfilling the requirements of section 2(f), registration on the Principal Register under § 2 is only proper when the subject matter is a distinguishing and identifying trademark per se and obviously does identify the goods and distinguish them from the goods of others.

Registration was here refused because the mark was considered "functional" and therefore not capable of identifying the origin of jewelry. That view rests on Penthouse's decision to employ its mark as the design of its pendants, rather than "on" its pendants. If the pendant has a nontrademark function, the inquiry is not at an end; possession of a function and of a capability of indicating origin are not in every case mutually exclusive. Whether, as the solicitor argues, the "mark performs the function of the jewelry item" is not controlling where the mark also serves to indicate origin.

As this court said in In re Deister Concentrator Co., Inc., 289 F.2d 496, 502-03, 48 CCPA 952, 963-65, 129 USPQ 314, 320-21 (1961):

A feature dictated solely by "functional" (utilitarian) considerations may not be protected as a trademark; but mere possession of a function (utility) is not sufficient reason to deny protection. * * *

* * * * * *

* * * There is a fundamental distinction . . . between "functional" shapes that are never capable of being monopolized, even when they become "distinctive of the applicant's goods," and shapes which can be monopolized because they are of such an arbitrary nature that the law does not recognize a right in the public to copy them, even if some incidental function is associated with them. Consider, for example, that the stitching in * * * In re Simmons Co., 278 F.2d 517, 47 CCPA 963, 126 USPQ 52 (1960) is functional as stitching. The Lanham Act, * * * does not deal with this distinction.

Thus, if the key configuration was not dictated by "`functional' considerations," as was the table shape in Deister, if it be distinctive per se and capable of identifying Penthouse's goods, its registration is proper.

The record shows that the stylized key design was chosen because Penthouse was using it as a trademark on other products. With respect to those other products, the mark is unquestionably arbitrary and fanciful. With respect to jewelry in general the mark itself has no nontrademark meaning. That one of Penthouse's jewelry items takes the form of its trademark does not strip the mark itself of its arbitrary and fanciful characteristics.

Jewelry designs as such are not registrable. The present decision, however, is governed by a special fact of record. The design is the mark. Penthouse is not merely attempting to register a jewelry design as a trademark; it seeks to register its established mark used as a jewelry design. Hence the case is unlike that of In re Honeywell, Cust. & Pat.App., 532 F.2d 180, 189 USPQ 343 (1976), wherein the applicant sought to register a functional design of a thermostat, and cases...