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The company wants to trademark the word Spectacles.
The photo was taken for The Verge.
The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected the application for trademarking the word "spectacles" for the digital eyewear camera device. The term "spectacles" is a generic term for smart glasses, and the version of the glasses that is sold by Snap has not acquired distinctiveness as required for a trademark.
The Spectacles name is an incongruity between an 18th century term for corrective eyewear and the high-tech 21st century smart glasses, according to the complaint. SPECTACLES is suggestive of the camera's purpose, to capture and share unusual, notable, or entertaining scenes, and while also encouraging users to make'spectacles' of themselves.
The Spectacles are a camera-equipped sunglasses that can take photos and videos while the user wears them and connects with the snap app. The first iteration of Spectacles flopped with consumers despite being sold online and in pop-up vending machines around the world. In its third-quarter earnings report, the company said it had lost over 40 million dollars on unsold Spectacles.
In May 2021, Evan Spiegel showed off an augmented reality version of the Spectacles, which is only available to a small group of creators and reviewers. The general public is not currently able to purchase the Spectacles.
Related.
The first augmented reality spectacle from snap is impractical.
There has been enough media coverage of Spectacles to support the claim that consumers associate the word "spectacles" with the brand, according to the new complaint. In September of 2016 a trademark application was filed for Spectacles, which is used in connection with consumer electronics devices and displays.
Since then, the company has been involved in several rounds of back-and-forth with the USPTO, which has maintained that the word "spectacles" appeared to be generic in connection with the identified goods. The agency made a decision.
The word "spectacles" was a generic term that applied to all smart glasses, not just the version of the device that was used by Snap. The board didn't support the company's argument that Spectacles' social media accounts have an "underwhelmed number of followers and the number of followers is surprisingly small."
In its Tuesday complaint, the attorneys for the company argued that "spectacles is an old-fashioned term popular in the 18th century, and that it is not often used today in the United States." The usage of sunglasses in the United States is not commonly understood to mean eyeglasses, and certainly not a wireless-enabled video camera.
The word "spectacles" can't be trademarked because the evidence doesn't support that argument, according to the appeal board. In its own marketing, the board noted that the Spectacles are a feature, function and characteristic of the camera, not only functionally but aesthetically.
The appeal board's November decision was challenged by the lawsuit. The company did not give a comment on the record.
