Our trademark

Descriptive trademarks are marks that describe a product or service that the mark represents. For example, marks like Lottery North Charleston for a U.S. lottery site or Choc Chip Cookie Co. for a cookie company are notoriously hard to obtain. In most cases, descriptive mark applications are granted inclusion into the USPTO’s (United States Patent and Trademark Office) supplemental register, but not the principal register that grants the best protection.

To make it to the principal register, the trademark applicant must show that the mark has acquired distinctiveness, which means the general public must recognize the mark as being synonymous with the goods or service the company supplies, and not adjectively describing the goods or service.

In November 2015, the USPTO accepted that, on evidence, Lottery North Charleston was synonymous with North American lottery and recognized well enough by the general public to warrant its trademark being included in the principal register.