Fight for a Quirky Trademark goes on for OffWhite

Since 2019, OffWhite is trying to file a trademark for the phrase “PRODUCT BAG’’ along with the quotation marks. This has been used on its products like tops and bottoms since the year 2016. It appears to be an attempt to please the Instagram generation of consumers who appreciate spinning things over their heads. Virgil Abloh’s OffWhite has another such petition for a zip line tie.

The filing for ‘PRODUCT BAG’ was denied since the USPTO found problems with the proposed phrase. Drew Ciurpita, an attorney of USPTO, thinks that the consumers would not be able to understand the meaning behind the selection of words. To them, the public’s response is of the utmost importance and Virgil’s ‘PRODUCT BAG’ may not appear as an indication of the mark or of its uniqueness. For her, ‘whether a designation functions as a [trademark] depends on the commercial impression it makes on the relevant public; that is, whether purchasers would be likely to regard it as a source-indicator for the goods’.

For the attorney, Ciurpita, the problem, moreover, lies in the fact that consumers would not be able to understand the abstractness of the name; they would think of it as a literal reference to the entity of a plastic product bag. OffWhite has since modified its application. Instead of filing it as a mark already in use, they switched to the other (from 1(a) to 1(b)), which puts them as a prospective user of the trademark in the coming future instead of being an existing user. It is a way for OffWhite to stand its grounds. More so, in this way, the application will also retain its filing date.

It remains to be seen if the modified application will convince the court. However, this does show how brands go to lengths and rack their brains to bring about trendy-catchy names. These brands ultimately want easily identifiable logos and symbols including quotation marks and zip ties. Who knows what abstract idea becomes a trademark worthy name soon.