PeopleWeb Communi-cations, Inc.

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 22, 2001

No. 75607997 (T.T.A.B. Mar. 22, 2001)

03/22/01 Paper No. 8
CEW
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
___________
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
___________
In re PeopleWeb Communications, Inc.
___________
Serial No. 75/607,997
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Christopher S. Marchese of Fish & Richardson for applicant.
Elissa Garber Kon, Trademark Examining Attorney, Law Office
110 (Chris A. F. Pedersen, Managing Attorney).
____________
Before Hanak, Hairston and Walters, Administrative Trademark
Judges.
Opinion by Walters, Administrative Trademark Judge:
PeopleWeb Communications, Inc. has filed a trademark
application to register the mark QUOTESERVER for “computer
services, namely, providing search engines for obtaining
data on a global computer network or local computer
network.”1
The Trademark Examining Attorney has finally refused
registration, under 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 services.

1 Serial No. 75/607,997, in International Class 42, filed December 18,
1998, based on use of the mark in commerce, alleging first use and use
in commerce as of February 28, 1997.
THIS DISPOSITION
IS NOT CITABLE AS PRECEDENT
OF THE T.T.A.B.
Serial No. 75/607,997
2
Applicant has appealed. Both applicant and the
Examining Attorney have filed briefs, but an oral hearing
was not requested. We affirm the refusal to register.
The Examining Attorney contends that “the word ‘quote
server’ is the common word used to refer to the services of
searching and retrieving, or otherwise providing,
information online concerning stock and financial quotes
and, in some cases, the actual server on which this
information is stored”; and that, while applicant’s services
are broadly identified, its recitation encompasses the
service of providing online stock quotes and financial
information. The Examining Attorney points to applicant’s
specimens, printouts of pages from its Web site, which use
QUOTESERVER to identify the section of its Web site that
provides stock quotes. In support of her position, the
Examining Attorney has submitted excerpts of articles from
the LEXIS/NEXIS database,2 several examples of which follow:
Plaintiff suggests that the architecture of the
two programs, as well as the structure of each
program’s “quote server,” the feature that
retrieves real time stock quotes and makes them
available to the end user, are similar.
Defendants deny any architectural similarities and
insist that its program does not even have a quote
server, but rather utilizes a “Market Data

2 The several excerpts that are from newswire services have been given
little weight. A proprietary newswire article is circulated primarily
to newspapers and news journals whose editors select from the releases
those stories of sufficient interest to publish. Therefore, the
article’s appearance in the NEXIS database does not prove that the news
release appeared as a story in any newspaper or magazine. See In re
Men’s International Professional Tennis Council, 1 USPQ2d 1917 (TTAB
1986); and In re Urbano, 51 USPQ2d 1776, 1778 fn. 3 (TTAB 1999) and
cases cited therein.
Serial No. 75/607,997
3
Multiplier to retrieve quotes. [New York Law
Journal, December 19, 1999.]
Preferred stock quotes may be viewed on most quote
servers by adding pr, p, or .pr after the main
stock symbol. [The Press-Enterprise, November 14,
1999.]
ProPack also has the ability to check an IP
address range for active ports (called a “port
scan”); retrieve SNMP data; analyze Windows
networks; measure end-to-end throughput; and
retrieve a quote of the day from a quote server.
[Network World, July 5, 1999.]
Each site is equipped with an ultra-high
bandwidth, fiber-optic phone line that connects to
the Internet and multiple quote servers, DigiTrade
officials said. [Securities Industry News, June
15, 1998.]
The transcripts are integrated with a free quote
server that lets users search for specific
information on companies by stock ticker symbol.
[Traffic World, March 17, 1997.]
Exchange-listed corporate bonds are no problem.
You can plug their ticker symbols into a few quote
servers, namely PC Quote and Quote.com. Both
serve up free delayed quotes. [Investor’s
Business Daily, March 13, 1997.]
The Examining Attorney also included a print-out of
CheckFree Investment Services’ Web site, appearing February
3, 2000, which included the following statement, among
others, about its “quoteserver”: “… we strongly discourage
anyone from using this quoteserver where a professional
quote service is more appropriate.”
Applicant contends that “[a]t most, the requested mark
might suggest that Appellant’s services tangentially relate
to computers through the use of the word ‘server[,]’
Serial No. 75/607,997
4
[h]owever, it is only through the insight and imagination of
the potential consumer of Appellant’s services that the
consumer would associate the proposed mark as a whole with
Appellant’s services.” Applicant argues that, even if the
individual terms “quote” and “server” may be descriptive,
the combination of the terms into the term QUOTESERVER is
not merely descriptive. In its brief, applicant states the
following:
The mark here does not even describe software or a
search engine. Rather, the proposed mark relates
to a service based on search engine software. In
sum, the mark QUOTESERVER does not describe the
actual server equipment that enables the specific
service.
…
The average consumer of Internet products and
services, confronted for the first time by the
proposed mark, would not immediately associate
“server” with a search engine for obtaining data
on [a] global or local network. Instead, the
average consumer would understand the word
“server” as describing a physical computer. As
defined in the dictionary, the word “server”
describes “a computer that makes services, as
access to data files, programs, and peripheral
devices, available to workstations on a network.
Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (2nd
ed.).
Applicant included with its brief copies of three third-
party registrations, for the marks RATESERVER for software,
MODELSERVER for software, and INFOSERVER for a trade
publication.3

3 Despite the Examining Attorney’s objection, we consider these
registrations to be properly of record because these are copies of
registrations referenced by applicant in an earlier response. The
Examining Attorney did not inform applicant that the mere listing of
registered marks did not make them properly of record until her final
Serial No. 75/607,997
5
The test for determining whether a mark is merely
descriptive is whether the involved term immediately conveys
information concerning a quality, characteristic, function,
ingredient, attribute or feature of the product or service
in connection with which it is used, or intended to be used.
In re Engineering Systems Corp., 2 USPQ2d 1075 (TTAB 1986);
In re Bright-Crest, Ltd., 204 USPQ 591 (TTAB 1979). It is
not necessary, in order to find a mark merely descriptive,
that the mark describe each feature of the goods or
services, only that it describe a single, significant
quality, feature, etc. In re Venture Lending Associates,
226 USPQ 285 (TTAB 1985). Further, it is well-established
that the determination of mere descriptiveness must be made
not in the abstract or on the basis of guesswork, but in
relation to the goods or services for which registration is
sought, the context in which the mark is used, and the
impact that it is likely to make on the average purchaser of
such goods or services. In re Recovery, 196 USPQ 830 (TTAB
1977).

refusal, so this was applicant’s first opportunity to correct that
error. However, these registrations are of limited value. As often
noted by the Board, each case must be decided on its own merits. We are
not privy to the records in the files of the cited registrations and,
moreover, the determination of registrability of particular marks by the
Trademark Examining Groups cannot control the result in another case
involving a different mark for different goods and/or services. In re
Nett Designs Inc., ___F.3d___, 57 USPQ2d 1564, 1566 (Fed. Cir.
2001)[“Even if some prior registrations had some characteristics similar
to [applicant’s application], the PTO’s allowance of such prior
registrations does not bind the Board or this court.”].
Serial No. 75/607,997
6
We conclude that the evidence establishes that
QUOTESERVER is merely descriptive in connection with
applicant’s computer services of providing search engines
for obtaining data on a global computer network or local
computer network. Notwithstanding applicant’s dictionary
definition of a “server” as computer hardware, it is clear
from the LEXIS/NEXIS evidence in the record that a quote
server, whether the term refers to software or software and
hardware, performs the function of obtaining information in
response to a request from a user. The evidence indicates
that users are most accustomed to viewing a quote server as
obtaining stock and other financial information, as
indicated by applicant’s own specimens. However, this
specific service is certainly contemplated within the scope
of applicant’s recitation of services.
In the present case, it is our view that, when applied
to applicant’s services, the term QUOTESERVER immediately
describes, without conjecture or speculation, a significant
feature or function of applicant’s services, namely, that
applicant’s search engine uses a quote server function or
program to make data available to users. Nothing requires
the exercise of imagination, cogitation, mental processing
or gathering of further information in order for purchasers
of and prospective customers for applicant’s services to
readily perceive the merely descriptive significance of the
Serial No. 75/607,997
7
term QUOTESERVER as it pertains to applicant’s services. We
are not persuaded otherwise by applicant’s arguments to the
contrary.
Decision: The refusal under Section 2(e)(1) of the Act
is affirmed.