Does Spacing Between Words Affect Trademark Rights? If I trademark a business name, and fail to put a space between the words, for example HAPPYDAY vs HAPPY DAY, will both be registered?
Does the spacing between the words of a trademark affect trademark rights? A viewer asked me that question she wants to know. I’m Angela Langlotz trademark and copyright attorney and I go live here on weekdays to discuss trademarks and copyrights. I’m going to spend the next four minutes answering her question. So her question was, if I trademark a business name and fail to put a space between the words, for example, HAPPYDAY one word versus HAPPY (space) DAY, will both be registered as trademarks?
And the answer is no. The junior mark in that case, assuming the goods were related, would not register. Why? Well, when we evaluate whether or not trademarks are confusingly similar — and that is the standard when we evaluate the similarity of the marks — one of the things that we look at is the overall commercial impression that the mark makes on the consumer and commercial impression incorporates a lot of factors. But one of those factors is the way the trademark sounds.
So when we say a phrase like HAPPY DAY, we don’t know whether or not there is a space between the words HAPPY and DAY. It just sounds exactly the same as HAPPY (space) DAY, because we don’t walk around putting spaces in between the words of of our speech. That would be a little bit weird. We would have (space) to (space), go (space) around (space)… I think you see what I’m saying. So we would pronounce happy day (one word,) the exact same way that we would pronounce happy day (two words.)
So the commercial impression, the auditory commercial impression that the consumer would get would be exactly the same for those two marks. In addition, the consumer is likely unable to distinguish at first glance whether or not the words actually have a space at all. It would depend upon how the words were presented to the consumer as well. So in this case, assuming the goods are related and assuming a mark like HAPPY DAY, this trademark application would be refused, assuming it is the junior mark that’s being applied for and a senior trademark that’s already registered.
So the junior mark, if the goods were related — and you can look at my other videos where I talk about this related goods issue because it’s an important and often misunderstood issue — if the goods are related and the marks convey a similar commercial impression, then the application for the junior mark will be denied because it would be confusingly similar to a mark already on the record.
So I’m going to tag the person who asked this question, so she knows I answered her question. If you have trademark questions, please drop them in the comments below. I will answer them in a future live video.
I’m on Facebook! “Like” my facebook page, to be notified every time I go LIVE. Do you have trademark questions? Message me on the Trademark Doctor Facebook page, and I’ll answer your questions on a future Live video.
Contact Dallas, Texas trademark attorney Angela Langlotz today to get started on a trademark application for your valuable brand.
great put up, very informative. I wonder why the opposite specialists of this sector don’t understand this.
You must proceed your writing. I’m confident, you’ve a
huge readers’ base already!
so would block and b lock be 2 different trademarks ?
or would they be too confusingly similar?
Kind Regards
Ezra
Thank you a bunch for sharing this with all people you actually know what you
are talking about! Bookmarked. Kindly additionally visit my web site =).
We could have a link alternate agreement between us
If they are for “related” goods, they would be considered the same trademark. You can’t get around the trademark rules with punctuation or spelling. Adding a space, a period, or other minor alterations does not cure the fact that you are infringing.
Hello, I wish for to subscribe for this blog to get most up-to-date updates, thus where can i do it please help out.
It depends upon the goods and services each mark is registered for. If the goods are not “related” under the trademark law, then the similar marks would not matter under most circumstances.
Hi Angela, what about adding a trademarked word without space to another generic random word? Would that be an infringement or be rejected for trademark registration? Eg: BenzOil, Benz + Oil
You can’t “incorporate the entirety” of someone else’s trademark into your own. So adding [generic word] to a registered trademark, either as [generic word] trademark or as trademark[generic word] is not allowed and is considered a trademark infringement.
Do you know any precedent of an already REGISTERED trademarks where “Firstword Secondword” trademark (with a space between two words) and “FirstwordSecondword” trademark (the same two words but without a space) have been successfully registered by USPTO and belong to two different owners? Maybe in two different classes?
I know about the likelihood of confusion, but this is not my question.
This is great. Very informative. Thank you. I have a follow up question…
…in this instance, with the term “HappyDay” being trademarked… could you use the ® with both spellings on the website… HappyDay® and Happy Day® to increase organic traffic through Search Engine Optimization? Because the term “HappyDay” would generate a lot less traffic volume than the term “Happy Day”.
As long as you are using correctly somewhere (i.e., exactly as you’ve registered it) the extra space generally isn’t considered a problem.
Sure, that happens all the time, so long as the goods and services in the two trademarks are not “related” to each other, such that it would cause a consumer to be confused about the source of the goods or services. Classes are not dispositive when we’re looking at this issue of consumer confusion (I know you said that you know about the likelihood of confusion, and this questions definitely touches on this) we look at the “relatedness” of the goods and/or services. Services can be related even though they aren’t in the same class (sunglasses and clothing, for example) and they can be in the same class and still not “related” (toy ant farms and cookie presses, for example). It’s really about the experience of the consumer and what the consumer expects to be related, not about the trademark classification rubric.