An oil change and tire rotation over the holiday yielded a little free time for me in our local Goodyear dealer’s waiting room, and it left me wondering about the Outrageously Dependable tagline of Interstate Batteries, so I captured the above image to tell a little blogworthy — if not blimpworthy — trademark story.
My question was whether the Outrageously Dependable tagline is federally-registered on the Principal Register, and if so, whether acquired distinctiveness was required to achieve this status, since Outrageously Good Coffee was recently refused registration, as it “merely describes, in a laudatory manner, a feature of the coffee—how good the coffee is.”
Turns out Outrageously Dependable is registered on the Principal Register without a showing under Section 2(f) — no acquired distinctiveness needed, so it is apparently considered inherently distinctive and suggestive of a desirable quality of the goods, not merely descriptive.
For some reason, Outrageously Dependable, does not merely describe, in a laudatory manner a feature of the batteries– how good or dependable they are, instead it is creative enough to suggest this without connecting all the leads and wires for the consumer.
Ponder that through the end of the year, and let us know whether you agree.