Fucking TTAB Says FUCT Owner Can’t Trademark ‘Fuck’ Because That Word Fucking Belongs To All Of Us
I love this story so much I want it to find other similar vulgar stories so that those stories can have little baby vulgar stories for me to read. You may recall the saga of Erik Brunetti, founder of FUCT, a fashion brand with a name supposedly standing for Friends U Can't Trust. We wrote about FUCT at first being denied a trademark on the brand over vulgarity concerns, a decision overturned on appeal on First Amendment grounds. It was a good ruling on the merits, as the government shouldn't be in the business of saving our ears from naughty words based on its judgement of naughtiness.
Well, Brunetti is back at it again. He applied for a trademark on the word fuck" for a bunch of fashion categories, such as bags, jewelery, cell phone cases, and the like. That application too was denied. Brunetti again went to the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board, which upheld the denial of the application, but not over concerns for vulgarity. No, in a magical moment, instead the TTAB essentially suggested that fuck" is a word that belongs to all of us.
"FUCK" Fails to Function as a Trademark for Jewelry, Handbags, Says TTAB. In re Erik Brunetti: https://t.co/OCVkMfF0Y7 pic.twitter.com/4C4zAHurXt
- TTABlog (@TTABlog) August 23, 2022
Now, I could pretend that reading the court document, embedded below, wasn't an absolute joy, so rife is it with one of my favorite words in any language. But I won't do that to you. But it's also a good document on, again, the merits. In the document, the TTAB has no issue with the vulgarity of the word. Instead, it points out correctly that the word fuck" simply doesn't function as a trademark, given that it offers nothing to the public in terms of the source of the products.
The function of a trademark is to identify a single source and to distinguish that seller's goods from others, and the Trademark Act does not allow registration unless a proposed mark serves this function. The record before us establishes that the word FUCK expresses well-recognized familiar sentiments and the relevant consumers are accustomed to seeing it in widespread use, by many different sources, on the kind of goods identified in the FUCK Applications. Consequently, we find that it does not create the commercial impression of a source indicator, and does not function as a trademark to distinguish Applicant's goods and services in commerce and indicate their source. Team Jesus, 2020 USPQ2d 11489, at *18-19. Consequently, Applicant cannot appropriate the term exclusively to itself, denying others the ability to use it freely. [I]t is the type of expression that should remain free for all to use.'" Univ. of Kentucky v. 40-0, LLC, 2021 USPQ2d 253, at *36 (quoting Eagle Crest, 96 USPQ2d at 1230).
[FUCK] is the type of expression that should remain free for all to use..." now there is something to put on a t-shirt.
So this is where we land. It was a good thing that FUCT was able to get its trademark. That term is a source identifier. The commonly spelled version of fuck", however, is completely different. As the TTAB says, that's a word that fucking belongs to all of us.