Tabberone is pronounced tab ber won not tay ber own

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This information is taken directly from the court opinion. It is not taken out of context nor is it altered.

From Abercrombie & Fitch v Hunting World, 537 F.2d 4 (2nd Cir 1976) A generic term is one that refers, or has come to be understood as referring, to the genus of which the particular product is a species. At common law neither those terms which were generic nor those which were merely descriptive could become valid trademarks, see Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. v. Clark, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 311, 323, 20 L.Ed. 581 (1872) ("Nor can a generic name, or a name merely descriptive of an article or its qualities, ingredients, or characteristics, be employed as a trademark and the exclusive use of it be entitled to legal protection"). The same was true under the Trademark Act of 1905, Standard Paint Co. v. Trinidad Asphalt Mfg. Co.,220 U.S. 446, 31 S.Ct. 456, 55 L.Ed. 536 (1911), except for marks which had been the subject of exclusive use for ten years prior to its enactment, 33 Stat. 726.10 While, as we shall see, p. ---- infra, the Lanham Act makes an important exception with respect to those merely descriptive terms which have acquired secondary meaning, see § 2(f), 15 U.S.C. § 1052(f), it offers no such exception for generic marks. The Act provides for the cancellation of a registered mark if at any time it "becomes the common descriptive name of an article or substance," § 14(c). This means that even proof of secondary meaning, by virtue of which some "merely descriptive" marks may be registered, cannot transform a generic term into a subject for trademark. As explained in J. Kohnstam, Ltd. v. Louis Marx and Company, 280 F.2d 437, 440, 47 CCPA 1080 (1960), no matter how much money and effort the user of a generic term has poured into promoting the sale of its merchandise and what success it has achieved in securing public identification, it cannot deprive competing manufacturers of the product of the right to call an article by its name. See, accord, Application of Preformed Line Products Co., 323 F.2d 1007, 51 CCPA 775 (1963); Weiss Noodle Co. v. Golden Cracknel and Specialty Co., 290 F.2d 845, 48 CCPA 1004 (1961); Application of Searle & Co., 360 F.2d 650, 53 CCPA 1192 (1966). We have recently had occasion to apply this doctrine of the impossibility of achieving trademark protection for a generic term, CES Publishing Corp. v. St. Regis Publications, Inc., 531 F.2d 11 (1975). The pervasiveness of the principle is illustrated by a series of well known cases holding that when a suggestive or fanciful term has become generic as a result of a manufacturer's own advertising efforts, trademark protection will be denied save for those markets where the term still has not become generic and a secondary meaning has been shown to continue. Bayer Co. v. United Drug Co., 272 F. 505 (2 Cir. 1921) (L. Hand, D. J. ); DuPont Cellophane Co. v. Waxed Products Co., 85 F.2d 75 (2 Cir.) (A. N. Hand, C. J. ), cert. denied, 299 U.S. 601, 57 S.Ct. 194, 81 L.Ed. 443 (1936); King-Seeley Thermos Co. v. Aladdin Industries, 1958). Cir. 1963). A term may thus be generic in one market and descriptive or suggestive or fanciful in another.