Mere Descriptiveness Case: HOSTIING and HOSTIING GROUP
In a 2021 non-precedential case, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed two §2(e)(1) refusals of registration for the proposed marks HOSTIING and HOSTIING GROUP (GROUP disclaimed) and found them to be merely descriptive of mobile apps for reserving lodging, management of short-term rentals, and booking services for temporary lodging.
Before delving into its analysis, the Board made it clear that the established evidence left no doubt that both HOSTIING and HOSTIING GROUP were merely descriptive because the terms “immediately conve[y] knowledge of a quality, feature, function, or characteristic” of the Applicant’s goods and services. See In re Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., 675 F.3d 1297, 102 USPQ2d 1217, 1219 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
Turning first to the Applicant’s use of the term HOSTIING in connection with its cited goods, the Applicant argued that “hosting” has multiple meanings unrelated to lodging rentals or home-sharing, and that the term is “most frequently” associated with website hosting. However, ample evidence showed that third parties used the terms “host” and “hosting” in connection with “offering, reserving and managing temporary lodging, including rental and other home-sharing arrangements.” Further, the Applicant used the terms exact same way, “for its identified rental property management and reservations/booking services, as well as its identified reservation and booking mobile app for short term rentals.” The Board gave no weight to the disclaimed term GROUP and found that HOSTIING GROUP simply conveyed “a group involved in hosting.”
Moving on to the misspelling of the term HOSTIING, the Applicant argued that the misspelling of the term “hosting” was purposeful, and the implementation of the double “ii” could lend itself multiple pronunciations and evoke a distinctive commercial impression. The Board was not impressed. It found that the Applicant’s “minor misspelling” did not change the meaning or look of the term. “In fact, ‘HOSTIING’ with two ‘II’s differs from ‘HOSTING’ with one by only one letter in the middle of the term. It thus looks almost the same and would be pronounced similarly or identically to ‘hosting,’ a term commonly used and with a well-recognized meaning in connection with Applicant’s identified goods and services.” The Board then cited In re Ginc UK Ltd., 90 USPQ2d 1472, 1475 (TTAB 2007), “The generic meaning of ‘togs’ is not overcome by the misspelling of the term as TOGGS in applicant’s mark. A slight misspelling is not sufficient to change a descriptive or generic word into a suggestive word.”
Ultimately, the Board found the Applicant’s marks HOSTIING and HOSTIING GROUP merely descriptive of its applied-for goods and services. It stated, “each component retains its merely descriptive significance in relation to the goods and services, and Applicant does not suggest any alternative commercial impression resulting from the combination of these immediately descriptive terms.” So, the refusals to register the marks under §2(e)(1) were affirmed.