Institute forData Research

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 10, 2006

No. 78382521 (T.T.A.B. Jul. 10, 2006)

Mailed: July 10, 2006

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
___________

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
___________

In re Institute for Data Research
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Serial No. 78382521
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Mary Dalton Baril of McGuire Woods for Data Research.

Amos T. Matthews, Trademark Examining Attorney, Law Office
108 (Andrew Lawrence, Managing Attorney).
____________

Before Walters, Bucher and Zervas, Administrative Trademark
Judges.

Opinion by Walters, Administrative Trademark Judge:

Institute for Data Research has filed an application to
register on the Principal Register the mark DATA BLUEPRINT
in standard character form for “information technology
consulting services, namely, data extraction, data
migration, data quality analysis, data management mentoring,
and data management maturity measurements,” in International
THIS DISPOSITION
IS NOT CITABLE AS
PRECEDENT OF
THE TTAB
Serial No. 78382521
2
Class 35.1 The application includes a disclaimer of DATA
apart from the mark as a whole.
The examining attorney has issued a final refusal to
register, 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 in connection with its services.
Applicant has appealed. Both applicant and the
examining attorney have filed briefs, but an oral hearing
was not requested. We reverse the refusal to register.
The examining attorney contends that the mark
“immediately and unambiguously conveys the fact that
applicant provides detailed plans or methods, through
consultation[,] of a company’s information technology to
create effective solutions to achieve the company’s goal”
(brief, p. 9); that “applicant’s mark describes a feature of
the services[;] [a]pplicant’s consulting services gather
useful information of an organization and devise plans to
join such information into an existing system …” (office
action of September 27, 2004); and that it is common
phrasing used in applicant’s industry to describe such
services. In support of his position, the examining
attorney submitted definitions of the individual terms from
several sources, including from www.answer.com, which

1 Serial No. 78382521, filed March 11, 2004, based on use of the mark in
commerce, alleging first use and use in commerce as of July 1, 2003.

Serial No. 78382521
3
defines “data” as “factual information, especially
information organized for analysis or used to reason or make
decisions[;] [n]umerical or other information represented in
a form suitable for processing by computer” and defines
“blueprint” as “a detailed plan of action[;] [a] model or
prototype.” The examining attorney submitted the results of
a Google Internet search of “data blueprint.” However, the
entries are truncated, the entries refer to applicant, the
relevance of the entries to this case is unclear, or the
entries are irrelevant. He also submitted excerpts from
applicant’s website, which include the following statements:
Data Blueprint specializes in systems metadata
engineering.
. . .
Our approach to data engineering employs two
activities: 1. extracting, understanding, and
improving organizational metadata and 2.
effectively incorporating the metadata into
organizational business and systems engineering
efforts.
. . .
Data & Architecture Evolution
Data Blueprint project teams specialize in data
engineering analysis and complementary
technologies that can combine to produce cost
effective results in very short time periods.
Data Blueprint project teams have assisted many
organizations in integrating their legacy and
future data implementations, and helped them to
create new data strategies that will allow them to
create more efficient architecture and more
optimized systems.

The examining attorney also submitted a few excerpts of
articles using the term “data blueprint” retrieved from the
Lexis/Nexis database. The several excerpts pertaining to
Serial No. 78382521
4
wireless telephone companies, pharmaceutical issues, and
computer companies are short and, from the text presented,
we are unable to determine their relevance to the services
herein. Therefore, this evidence is of limited probative
value.
Applicant contends that its mark is not merely
descriptive because a multistage reasoning process is
required to determine the nature of applicant’s services;
that the examining attorney has made his determination of
descriptiveness in the abstract and based on evidence that
is not relevant; that, although the individual words
comprising the mark “are commonly accepted words,” the mark
combines the words in an incongruous manner resulting in a
term that does not have a well-established meaning; and that
the mark is not used as a descriptive term by others in the
field of information technology consulting services.
Applicant states the following (brief, p. 8):
Although applicant’s services include working with
data, this phenomenon does not result in the
identification of all information technology
consulting services as “data blueprint.” The term
“blueprint” is only descriptive with respect to
the mechanical and architectural fields, is not
inherent to the field of information technology,
and has not attained widespread acceptance, all of
which is evident by the few and limited uses the
examining attorney was able to provide.

Applicant’s specimen of use is an excerpt from its website
and includes the following statements:
XML – Support for Data Management
Serial No. 78382521
5
. . .
“XML Application integration allows multiple
systems to communicate through a common data
interface.”
. . .
In today’s organizational settings, the use of XML
is spreading into a number of different areas that
previous data management and formatting
technologies have not even touched. Particularly
exciting is the trend of moving towards storing
more unstructured data in XML form. Many
organizations are not aware that as much as 60% of
their critical data is stored in unstructured
formats such as Word, Excel, Power Point, and
other formats that cannot be easily searched,
indexed, and shared.
. . .
When documents were stored in XML format and are
searchable, the potential for useful information
exchange within the organization is astounding.
Data Blueprint accomplishes this by examining the
metadata present in documents and devising
strategies to move it into a flexible and
extendible XML format that dovetails with any
existing enterprise information architecture
already in place.

Also in support of its position, applicant submitted
documents describing its services with its response of July
19, 2005. The following statement is from applicant’s web
page entitled “Data Management Assessment”:
Data Blueprint has developed a methodology and
toolset that allows a quick and accurate
assessment of an organization’s current maturity
level and areas of exposure as part of its ongoing
research into the state of practice of data
management.

Data Blueprint can provide practice assessments in
the areas of: Data Program Coordination;
Enterprise Data Integration; Data
Stewardship/Quality; Data Development; Data
Support Operations.

Serial No. 78382521
6
The test for determining whether a mark is merely
descriptive is whether it 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 that a mark is 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).
We have before us extensive information from applicant
as to the nature of its services. The examining attorney
has also clearly done extensive research; however, we agree
with applicant that the result falls far short of
establishing that the mark DATA BLUEPRINT immediately and
without conjecture conveys information as to the nature of
Serial No. 78382521
7
applicant’s services or any significant aspect thereof.
Extrapolating from the relevant evidence that we do have and
considering applicant’s mark not in the abstract but in
connection with the identified services, we find that
several cognitive steps are required from the connotation of
“blueprint” in the mark DATA BLUEPRINT to reach a
description of applicant’s services or a feature of those
services. Therefore, we conclude that the examining
attorney has not established that the mark is merely
descriptive.
Decision: The refusal under Section 2(e)(1) of the Act
is reversed.