UPDATED: The right to know what befuddles you. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit clarified the “materiality” prong of 15 U.S.C. § 1052(e)(3), a new subsection added to trademark statutory law by the NAFTA Implementation Act of 1993, which prohibits “geographically deceptively misdescriptive” trademarks (and service marks). In re: Spirits International, N.V., 2008-1369 (April 29, 2009) involved an application for Moskovskaya, which translates from Russian to English as “of or from Moscow,” as a mark for a Russian vodka that is not from Moscow. Because the Trademark and Trial Appeal Board didn’t apply the proper test–whether those capable of translating the term represented a “substantial portion of the intended audience”–the case was sent back to see if that proper subset of consumers would mistakenly assume the vodka was from Moscow and, for that reason, choose to purchase it.
Note: Seldom-confused Rob Bodine is a DC-based IP lawyer, world traveler, and philosopher. Rob recently became of counsel to Hull McGuire. He will be a frequent contributor to WAC? on issues of trade and service marks, IP licensing and, apparently, Vodka globally.