Wyndham IP Corp.

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

May 9, 2002

No. 75931500 (T.T.A.B. May. 9, 2002)

5/9/02

Mailed: 09 MAY 2002
Paper No. 10
AD

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
________

In re Wyndham IP Corporation
________

Serial No. 75/931,500
_______

Valerie Verret of Baker Botts, L.L.P. for Wyndham IP
Corporation.

Glenn G. Clark, Trademark Examining Attorney, Law Office
115 (Thomas Vlcek, Managing Attorney).
_______

Before Cissel, Hohein and Drost, Administrative Trademark
Judges.

Opinion by Drost, Administrative Trademark Judge:

Wyndham IP Corporation (applicant) filed a trademark
application to register the mark WYNDHAM WIRED (in typed
form)1 on the Principal Register for services identified as
“hotel services, namely offering high-technology room

1 Serial No. 75/931,500, filed February 29, 2000. The
application is based on applicant’s allegation of a bona
intention to use the mark in commerce.
THIS DISPOSITION IS
NOT CITABLE AS
PRECEDENT OF THE
TTAB
Ser. No. 75/931,500
2
furnishings upgrades to business travelers” in
International Class 42.
The Examining Attorney required applicant to disclaim
the term “WIRED” under the provisions of Section 6(a) of
the Trademark Act. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1052(2)(e)(1) and 1056(a).
When the Examining Attorney made the requirement for a
disclaimer final, applicant filed a notice of appeal. Both
applicant and the Examining Attorney have submitted briefs,
but no oral argument was requested.
The Examining Attorney’s position is that “business
travelers are using the word ‘wired’ to mean that the hotel
will have Internet access and other electronic
connections.” Brief at p. 4. The Examining Attorney
introduced numerous printouts from the Internet and the
NEXIS automated database that show use of the term “wired”
in relation to hotels. Some examples are set out below:
Just a few years ago, a hotel could call itself “wired”
if it offered a dedicated phone line for an Internet or
fax connection. Today, being wired means something
entirely different. The newest properties are opening
with rooms featuring dedicated, high-speed Internet
connections at T-1 speeds – that’s 100 times faster
than the fastest phone modem – or higher. Existing
hotels are retrofitting their rooms to accommodate a
surging demand for fast Net access.
Entrepeneur.com, www.entrepeneur.com.

Woodfin Suites are among the best wired hotels in the
nation, featuring Internet hook-ups in each suite.
Woodfin Suite Hotels,
www.woodfinsuitehotels.com/news/factsheet
Ser. No. 75/931,500
3

Wired Hotels
Here’s a roundup of the high-tech plans of hotel
companies, plus details on some especially wired
properties.
Technology Meeting and Incentive Solutions,
www.meetingsnet.com.

Billing itself as New York’s “most wired” hotel, the
Holiday Inn-Wall Street District opened its doors last
week to serve the high-tech lodging needs of the
downtown financial community and neighboring Silicon
Alley. The 138-room, 15-suite hotel … is the only
property in NYC to offer a T-1 connection in every
guestroom.
ISHC, www.hotelinteractive.com.

Hotels Going Broadband
Hotels are scrambling to add broadband access to their
guest, meeting and conference rooms, according to a
recent report ….The report, “The Wired Room: Hotel
Broadband Preference Analysis,” is available for $1995.
PCWORLD.COM, www.pcworld.com/news.

Find a Wired Hotel
[I]t pays to have a room with high-speed Internet
access. The Geektools.com guide to “Geek Hotels” is a
simple way to find the most wired hotels around the
globe, as it provides listings for 29 states and seven
countries.
ECompany Now, www.ecompany.com.

Hotel rooms get wired to meet corporate travel demands
Billed as “the wired hotel,” the Hilton also has a
fully equipped business center.
Business Journal, www.sanjosebcentral.com.

Wired Hotels
Tests have started or are about to in 10 hotels, two of
them in Washington, D.C., and the rest along the West
Coast, for a new Internet access from hotel rooms. The
system allows the guest to plug into a jack separate
from the hotel’s regular telephone system.
Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), April 6, 1998, p.5D.

Ser. No. 75/931,500
4
Only a handful of U.S. hotels have in-room Net access,
though many are considering it… Another wired hotel is
the Sherman House in San Francisco.
Investor’s Business Daily, August 15, 1997, p. A1.

If you’re a guest traveling with your laptop and hope
to hook in at one of these wired hotels, it’s a good
idea to bring your connection.
Investor’s Business Daily, July 5, 2000, p. A8.

Supported by this and the other evidence2 in the file,
the Examining Attorney submits that the word “wired” is
merely descriptive for hotel services and that the
combination of the word “Wired” with “Wyndham” does not
create “a unitary mark having a separate, nondescriptive
meaning.” Brief at p. 9.
In its brief, applicant maintains that “[t]he word
Wired imparts a double entendre when used in connection
with applicant’s upgrade program.” Brief at p. 3.
Applicant relies on an alternative definition of “wired” in
which the word is defined as “well connected, as with high-
ranking members of a organization.”
Since Applicant’s mark will identify an upgrade
program, Applicant contends that its mark implies that
participants in the program have “connections” that
result in room upgrades, and are well-connected (and
treated accordingly) when staying at Applicant’s
hotels. As a result, when used in connection with
Applicant’s upgrade program, the word WIRED imparts a
clever double entendre.

2 In addition to the NEXIS and Internet evidence, the Examining
Attorney submitted a dictionary definition that defines “wired”
as “equipped with a system of wires, as for electronic or
telephone connections.”
Ser. No. 75/931,500
5
Brief at p. 4.

Applicant also argues that the Examining Attorney’s
evidence3 shows different uses of the term “wired,” such as
wiring money to a hotel or using listening devices in a
hotel room, and these alternative uses undercut the
Examining Attorney’s argument that the term is merely
descriptive and properly subject to a disclaimer
requirement.
Because we agree with the Examining Attorney that the
term “WIRED” is merely descriptive of “hotel services,
namely offering high-technology room furnishings upgrades
to business travelers,” we affirm the Examining Attorney’s
requirement for a disclaimer of that word.
A mark is merely descriptive if it immediately
describes the ingredients, qualities, or characteristics of
the goods or services or if it conveys information
regarding a function, purpose, or use of the goods or
services. In re Abcor Development Corp., 588 F.2d 811, 200
USPQ 215, 217 (CCPA 1978). See also In re Nett Designs,
236 F.3d 1339, 57 USPQ2d 1564, 1566 (Fed. Cir. 2001). We
must consider the mark in relation to the goods or
services, and not in the abstract, when we determine

3 We agree with applicant’s objection to the printouts from wire
services, and therefore, we have not considered them.
Ser. No. 75/931,500
6
whether the mark is descriptive. Abcor, 588 F.2d at 814,
200 USPQ at 218. Courts have long held that to be “merely
descriptive,” a term need only describe a single
significant quality or property of the goods. In re
Gyulay, 820 F.2d 1216, 1217, 3 USPQ2d 1009, 1009 (Fed. Cir.
1987); Meehanite Metal Corp. v. International Nickel Co.,
262 F.2d 806, 807, 120 USPQ 293, 294 (CCPA 1959).
The Examining Attorney has provided significant
evidence that the term “wired” is commonly used to describe
hotel rooms that have high-speed Internet connections.
Such evidence shows, among other things, that simply
providing an Internet connection is no longer sufficient;
hotels are now offering rooms with high-speed Internet
connections. Under a headline that reads “Supercomputers
and wired hotels,” a “wired” hotel has been called “the
region’s first truly high-tech hotel. To wit: the first
hotel in the area with high-speed internet access in its
guest rooms.” The Business Journal Portland,
Portland.bcentral.com. Another article offers a “roundup
of the high-tech plans of hotel companies, plus some
details on some especially wired properties.” Technology
Meeting and Incentive Solutions, www.meetingsnet.com. In
an article entitled “Trekmeister: Wired Hotels” reports
that it “is a rapidly increasing trend, with the industry
Ser. No. 75/931,500
7
competing to bring all the comforts of the high-tech office
to thousands of hotel rooms around the world.” FSB Travel,
www.fsb.com. In another article, entitled “Hotel rooms get
wired to meet corporate travel demands,” it is reported
that some “large corporations--Intel Corp. and Hewlett-
Packard Co., for example--are practically demanding high-
speed connectively and multiple telephone lines, at a
minimum, for their business travelers.” Business Journal,
www.sanjosebcentral.com.
Clearly, the evidence shows that hotel rooms are
frequently referred to as “wired” to describe, at a
minimum, their Internet connections, and now specifically
to refer to their high-speed Internet connections. These
“wired” rooms are marketed to business travelers. There is
even a guide that tells travelers where they can find
“wired” hotel rooms. See ECompany Now, www.ecompany.com
(“Find a wired hotel – Geektools.com will help you locate a
hotel with high-speed Net access, a fax machine, and
Ethernet hookups”).
As indicated above, these “wired” hotel rooms are also
described as “high-tech.” Applicant’s services, which are
identified as “hotel services, namely offering high-
technology room furnishings upgrades to business
travelers,” would be encompassed by the term “wired.”
Ser. No. 75/931,500
8
Therefore, we find that the term “wired” is merely
descriptive of applicant’s hotel services. The fact that
the term “wired” can have other meanings such as wiring
money and bugging a room does not take away form the fact
that we look at the question of descriptiveness in regard
to the services set out in the application. While “wired”
would have a different meaning when applied to listening
devices or money transfer services, in regards to hotel
services, the term is merely descriptive of hotels
featuring high-technology communications features.
Applicant, as mentioned previously, also argues that
there is a double entendre in the mark because “wired”
could be viewed as meaning the business traveler in the
upgrade program would “have ‘connections’ that results in
room upgrades.” In light of the evidence that describes
the importance of “wired” hotel rooms to business
travelers, we cannot accept that this double entendre would
be readily apparent to business travelers.
In re Volvo Cars of North America Inc., 46 USPQ2d 1455,
1460 (TTAB 1998) (“We hasten to add that to the extent that
applicant's designation DRIVE SAFELY engenders some minor
double entendre, this should not result in registration
inasmuch as the primary significance of the phrase remains
that of a commonplace safety admonition”).
Ser. No. 75/931,500
9
Second, when we view the mark WYNDHAM WIRED, the term
“wired” appears to refer to the hotel and not to the
business traveler. Tallahassee Democrat, February 17, 2001
(“[H]er office frequently gets calls from visitors wanting
to know where wired hotels are located. Even if they don’t
have computers, such hotels are attractive to business
travelers who carry portable computers and prefer high-
speed to dial up access”). The mark WYNDHAM WIRED would
similarly be understood to refer to applicant’s hotel
services featuring high technology room furnishings
upgrades for business travelers. Unlike the term “light”
in the mark LIGHT N’ LIVELY, WIRED is not lost in the mark
WYNDHAM WIRED.
The mark "LIGHT N' LIVELY" as a whole has a suggestive
significance which is distinctly different from the
merely descriptive significance of the term "LIGHT"
per se. That is, the merely descriptive significance
of the term "LIGHT" is lost in the mark as a whole.
Moreover, the expression as a whole has an
alliterative lilting cadence which encourages persons
encountering it to perceive it as a whole. For these
reasons, we believe that purchasers will not go
through the mental process of breaking the mark "LIGHT
N' LIVELY" into its component elements but will rather
regard it as a unitary mark.

In re Kraft, Inc., 218 USPQ 571, 573 (TTAB 1983).

While both words in applicant’s mark begin with the
letter “W,” this fact does not change the descriptive
nature of the word “wired.” This word simply serves to
Ser. No. 75/931,500
10
provide additional information about applicant’s hotel
services concerning its high technology room furnishings
upgrades for business travelers. Therefore, the term
“wired” in applicant’ mark WYNDHAM WIRED is merely
descriptive of these services, and the Examining Attorney’s
requirement for a disclaimer is appropriate.
Decision: The Examining Attorney’s refusal to
register the mark WYNDHAM WIRED without a disclaimer of the
term “WIRED” is affirmed. Under 37 CFR § 2.142(g), this
decision will be set aside and the application returned to
the Trademark Examining Attorney to place it in condition
for publication for opposition if applicant, no more than
thirty days from the mailing date of this decision, submits
an appropriate disclaimer of the term “WIRED.”