‘DXPortal’ Too Descriptive to Work as a Trademark, Board Says

A Florida healthcare company can’t register DXPORTAL as a trademark because it would be perceived as descriptive of aspects of its product, an administrative tribunal ruled.

NextGen Management LLC didn’t dispute that DX referred to “diagnostic” and that portal described its product, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said in a Wednesday precedential decision. The board said it didn’t matter whether storing diagnostic information is only one of a number of features of the portal, as a “mark need not recite each feature” to be descriptive, just one feature or attribute.

Descriptive marks describe products or their attributes, and can ...