Hoopes on Reclaiming the Primary Significance Test: Dictionaries, Corpus Linguistics, and Trademark Genericide

Neal Hoopes (Independent) has published Reclaiming the Primary Significance Test: Dictionaries, Corpus Linguistics, and Trademark Genericide. Here is the abstract.

Companies spend billions to promote their brand. But with increased trademark recognition comes the possibility of losing exclusive rights to use that trademark, a process called genericide. Courts have often turned to linguistic evidence, such as dictionaries and media usage, to determine whether a trademark has become generic. These courts merely suggest that linguistic tools reflect a trademark’s meaning. Yet these tools are not the objective indicators that courts have assumed. This Paper discusses why using dictionaries and media usage to prove genericide is a mistake and then turns to evaluating another tool, corpus linguistics. Corpus linguistics, unlike other linguistic tools, may prove beneficial for companies seeking to protect their trademarks. Ultimately, however, linguistic tools — including dictionaries, media usage, and corpus linguistics — cannot prove genericism because linguistic data may, at best, prove a term’s majority usage. But the Lanham Act requires a showing of primary significance. The Paper contends that courts should maintain majority usage and primary significance as distinct concepts and, in this way, should reclaim the primary significance test.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.