Teloquent Communications Corp.

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 29, 1999

No. 75133615 (T.T.A.B. Jun. 29, 1999)

Paper No. 9
ejs
THIS DISPOSITION IS NOT
CITABLE AS PRECEDENT OF THE TTAB JUNE 29, 99
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
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In re Teloquent Communications Corporation
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Serial No. 75/133,615
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Donna M. Weinstein of Fish & Richardson P.C. of Teloquent
Communications Corporation
Peter Cataldo, Trademark Examining Attorney, Law Office 103
(Michael Szoke, Managing Attorney)
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Before Seeherman, Hanak and Chapman, Administrative
Trademark Judges.
Opinion by Seeherman, Administrative Trademark Judge:
Teloquent Communications Corporation has appealed from
the refusal of the Trademark Examining Attorney to register
WEB CALL CENTER as a trademark for "computer software for
coordinating global network access with telephone
communication operations."1 Registration has been refused

1 Application Serial No. 75/133,615, filed July 12, 1996,
asserting a bone fide intention to use the mark in commerce.
Ser. No. 75/133,615
2
pursuant to Section 2(e)(1) of the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C.
§ 1052(e)(1), on the ground that applicant's mark is merely
descriptive of its identified goods.
Applicant and the Examining Attorney have filed
briefs; an oral hearing was not requested.
We affirm the refusal.
A term is merely descriptive, within the meaning of
Section 2(e)(1) of the Trademark Act, if it immediately
conveys information concerning a quality, characteristic,
function, ingredient, attribute or feature of a product or
service. In re Venture Lending Associates, 226 USPQ 285
(TTAB 1985). Moreover, the question of whether a
particular term is merely descriptive must be determined
not in the abstract, but in relation to the goods or
services for which registration is sought. See In re
Engineering Systems Corp., 2 USPQ2d 1075 (TTAB 1986).
In this case, the Examining Attorney has made of
record excerpts from numerous articles taken from the NEXIS
data base. Applicant has pointed out that some of these
articles are from foreign publications or wire service
reports, and some refer to applicant's own product.
Applicant is correct that we cannot determine from this
record whether the foreign and wire service articles were,

Ser. No. 75/133,615
3
in fact, disseminated to the public in the United States,
although the wire service reports are evidence of how the
various authors view the term "Web call center." Even if
we exclude all the questionable articles, however,
pertinent references which remain include the following:
…they should use the NetMeeting 2.0 SDK
interfaces and ActiveX controls for
Internet telephone applications such as
web call centers….
…Web call centers really increase the
level of service a company can extend
to its customers.
"Computer Telephony," June 1997
Is your mission-critical app [sic]
server (Web call center, etc.)
connected to the Internet….
"Teleconnect," June 1997
Hammer debuted a web-call center
software add-on to their testing box.
"Teleconnect," April 1997
…database of images for agent-to-
browser transmission stored in AT&T's
network; and AT&T's voice network for
web/call-center integration.
***
AT&T is hoping you'll leave the web-to-
call-center integration to them.
"Computer Telephony," March 1997
Headline: Tech Trends: Web Integration;
Call Centers Go On-Line
…public on the Internet," says Greg
Johnston, manager of integrated
networks at Household Credit Services,
Salinas,, Calif. "This Web call-center
idea does pose interesting
possibilities."
"CommunicationsWeek," January 1, 1996
Ser. No. 75/133,615
4
AT&T to link Web, call centers
AT&T Corp. plans to launch in October a
trial service that links Web pages with
sales and customer-….
"Computerworld," Sept. 16, 1996
Aspect Telecommunications Monday
introduced Aspect Interactive Web, a
powerful solution that integrates the
World Wide Web with call center
transactions to deliver a new level of
customer service.
"EDGE," August 12, 1996
Moreover, even the articles which applicant asserts
refer to its own product in a trademark manner show, in all
but one case, descriptive or generic use of "call center."
For example, the August 26, 1996 "PC Week" article states
that "A typical call center includes a Gateway server with
hardware and software to link to the Internet," and the
August 27, 1996 article in "ISDN NEWS" mentions that
"Telequent [applicant] also launched Web Call Center, which
enables users to reach a company's call center via the
web."
The Examining Attorney has also made of record several
third-party registrations for marks containing the term
CALL CENTER for telecommunications equipment and services,
and computer software in the field of telecommunications.
These registrations all include disclaimers of the words
CALL CENTER, thereby indicating that the term is considered
to be descriptive for such goods and services.
Ser. No. 75/133,615
5
Applicant’s goods, as identified, are "computer
software for coordinating global network access with
telephone communication operations." "Global network" is
another term for the World Wide Web, or Web, and "telephone
communication operations" is another term for call centers.
The purchasers of applicant’s goods, as indicated by the
periodicals which discuss these products, including
applicant’s own software,2 would clearly be knowledgeable
about this terminology. They would immediately understand,
upon viewing WEB CALL CENTER used in connection with
"computer software for coordinating global network access
with telephone communication operations," that the software
is used for a Web call center. As such, the mark is merely
descriptive, in that it directly conveys information about
a principal characteristic of the software.
Decision: The refusal of registration is affirmed.
E. J. Seeherman
E. W. Hanak
B. A. Chapman
Administrative Trademark Judges
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

2 For example, articles which refer to applicant’s WEB CALL
CENTER software have appeared in "PC Week," "Computer Telephony,"
"ISDN NEWS" and "Network World."