Grupo Bimbo Sues U.S. PTO, Appealing ‘Artesano’ Trademark Denial

Grupo Bimbo S.A.B. de C.V. filed a lawsuit appealing the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s decision denying registration of the “Artesano” trademark, which Bimbo has used since 2015 as a brand of pre-packaged sliced bread.

The PTO, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, found that although Artesano “has acquired distinctiveness as a trademark,” the word “is a generic term for pre-packaged sliced bread and thus barred from registration.”

Retailers, Bimbo said, have sold about a billion dollars of Artesano bread since August 2015, making it “one of the most ...