What’s in a name? Plenty, if the name is Spectacles, and the parties arguing over the moniker are Snap Inc. and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Snap filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California Wednesday, claiming that the PTO was wrong in denying its trademark application for its Spectacles camera sunglasses and saying the word is a generic term for smart glasses.
The first edition of Spectacles debuted late on a Friday night in September 2016, and they were sold via pop-up vending machines called Snapbots.
The second generation, released in April 2018, added the ability to capture photos—the first release only captured videos—quicker transfer of HD content via Wi-Fi, water-resistant construction, a sleeker frame and more options for frame colors and lens shades.
Limited-edition Spectacles 3, which added 3D to the mix, emerged in August 2019.
And the fourth and newest generation, introduced at the end of the Snap Partner Summit last May, added augmented reality to the mix but they are not available for purchase, instead being distributed to AR creators.
Snap said in its complaint, “The Spectacles name evokes an incongruity between an 18th century term for corrective eyewear and Snap’s high-tech 21st century smart glasses. Spectacles also is suggestive of the camera’s purpose: to capture and share unusual, notable or entertaining scenes (i.e., ‘spectacles’), while also encouraging users to make ‘spectacles’ of themselves.”
The company added, “The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the USPTO’s refusal to register the Spectacles trademark based on the remarkable position that ‘spectacles’ is a generic term that the consuming public primarily understands to designate an entire class of goods (i.e., cameras), rather than the source of those goods. But the consuming public, the media and Snap’s competitors all refer to the type of products sold under the Spectacles mark as ‘smart glasses’ or ‘camera glasses,’ not ‘spectacles.’ Moreover, the media and consuming public understands that Spectacles is a brand of smart glasses made by Snap.”
Snap asked the court to reverse the TTAB’s decision and direct the PTO to accept its trademark application.
