Block Puzzle Icon Deemed Too Descriptive of Game to Be Trademark

A mobile phone game publisher failed to show its “Wood Block Puzzle 3D” app’s icon functions as a trademark rather than being merely descriptive of the game, an administrative trademark tribunal said.

Shanghai Zhenglang Technology Co. Ltd.'s proposed design trademark for “Wood Block Puzzle 3D” would be perceived as describing the gameplay, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said Monday in a precedential opinion. While the brown block-like shapes it didn’t exactly replicate what players see during the game, none of the differences suffice to render the image inherently distinctive, the board found.

The precedential opinion noted that images, like ...