AdvertisingAge Quoted Josh Gerben About Campbell’s Registration of “Chunky”

Campbell Soup Company was recently granted a trademark registration for the word “Chunky” in relation to the eponymous soups.  Although the USPTO could have rejected the application as being too descriptive, Campbell’s submitted large amounts of evidence to overcome those claims.

Josh Gerben was quoted by AdAge about Campbell’s arguments regarding the descriptive concerns:

“The numbers that they have on this are very significant,” says trademark attorney Josh Gerben, principal at Gerben IP. “They certainly spent a lot of time and money to pull all of this together.”

Still, he finds Campbell’s argument, well, thin. He worries the company will go after smaller soup makers that use the word “chunky” to describe a style of soup, a word that’s relatively common in online recipes and other forums. “I do not the think the government should have granted the registration, given how much use of the word ‘chunky’ there is in the soup business outside Campbell’s,” says Gerben.

Source: Wohl, J. “Campbell Trademarks The Word ‘Chunky'”.  AdAge.com.  February 5 2019.