Green Patent Blog: Trademark Board Nixes Powertech’s HYBRID
GREEN Mark  One of the common hurdles green brand owners have to
overcome to protect their brands is U.S. trademark
law's proscription against registration of marks that are
"merely descriptive" of the goods or services.   The rationale
for this rule is that registering a generic or descriptive term
would restrict competitors from conveying information about
their goods or services.  Many of the terms used to signal
environmentally friendly aspects of goods or services - terms
such as "green" and "eco-" - are so immediately identified with
those characteristics that they have become legally incapable of
the distinctiveness required for U.S. trademark registration.
Powertech Industrial Ltd. (Powertech), a Taiwanese
company, recently ran into this problem when it sought
registration of the mark HYBRID GREEN UPS for "power supplies;
mobile phone battery chargers; mobile phone battery charger
stations; battery chargers; universal power supplies; power s