There’s a really long line outside a shop that just opened in my neighborhood. And there should be, because the product is super yummy and everything about the packaging and delivery is spectacular, except . . .
Oh no, DŌ.
The owner of the shop, Cookie Dough, Inc., filed two applications with the Trademark Office to register DŌ for:
“Cookie dough; Cookies; Bakery goods and dessert items, namely, cakes, cookies, pastries, candies, and frozen confections for retail and wholesale distribution and consumption on or off the premises; Edible cookie dough not intended for baking; Frozen cookie dough.”
Unsurprisingly, the Trademark Office is refusing to register DŌ on a variety of grounds, including that “the applied-for mark appears to be generic in connection with the identified goods and, therefore, incapable of functioning as a source-identifier for applicant’s goods.”
In other words, Cookie Dough, Inc. can’t have exclusive use of the word “dough” for selling dough because people who sell dough, need to be able to say “dough” when selling dough. And in the world of trademarks “dough” and “DŌ” are the same thing.
This is such a terrible shame, because they’re going gangbusters and I suspect they’re getting a lot of buzz. It’s just so sad to have to deal with a risk that could have been avoided, especially when everything else about the business idea and execution are so awesome.