Test Your TTAB Judge-Ability: Is "FANTRIP" Merely Descriptive of Travel Agency Services for Fan-Themed Destinations?

Applicant FanTrip LLC sought to register the mark FANTRIP for "[t]ravel agency services, namely, making reservations and bookings for transportation and temporary lodging for fan-themed destinations." Beyond Boundaries opposed on the ground of mere descriptiveness under Section 2(e)(1). Opposer submitted dictionary definitions of "fan" and "trip," media uses of "fan trip," website pages using the term "fan trip," and third-party travel-related registrations disclaiming "trip." How do you think this came out? [Editorial Warning: Yours Truly represented the Opposer.] Beyond Boundaries Travel, Inc. v. FanTrip LLC, Opposition No. 91189499 (May 4, 2012) [not precedential].


The Board sustained the opposition. In a nutshell, it found that the compound term FANTRIP "has no different meaning apart from its constituent words," that the Internet evidence "establishes that the term “fantrip” (“fan trip”) is used in the travel industry to describe fan-themed trips or travel destinations, and that:

[T]he term “fantrip,” when viewed as a whole, would be understood in the context of applicant’s identified services to merely describe, without conjecture or speculation, or the gathering of additional information, a significant feature or purpose of applicant’s identified travel agency services, namely that applicant’s making reservations and bookings for transportation and lodging are for ... fan-themed trips.

TTABlog note: The Board made a number of evidentiary rulings relating to the admissibility of discovery responses, which rulings are worth reviewing.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2012.

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