Timberland loses US court bid to trademark boot-design features

VF Corp's VFC boot maker Timberland cannot receive a federal trademark covering certain elements of its famous boot design, a U.S. appeals court said on Monday.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision that features of the boots including its sole color, eyelets and stitching were not distinctive enough to identify the boots as Timberland products.

Representatives for Timberland did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision. A spokesperson for the USPTO declined to comment.

Timberland applied for a federal trademark covering the features in 2015. The USPTO rejected the application in a decision that was later upheld by an office tribunal and a Virginia federal court.

The 4th Circuit agreed with the office on Monday and said Timberland failed to show that the design features encourage customers to buy its boots "because, to the public, those features make the boot a Timberland product."

The appeals court noted that Timberland's trademark application did not include "more conspicuous" aspects of its boots that may identify them more clearly as Timberland products, including its tree logo, lug soles and best-selling "wheat-yellow" color.

"Some consumers might recognize the whole boot, unclaimed features and all, as a Timberland," U.S. Circuit Judge Marvin Quattlebaum wrote for a three-judge panel. "But TBL did not undertake to register the entire boot."

The case is TBL Licensing LLC v. Vidal, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 23-1150.

For Timberland: Elizabeth Ferrill of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner

For the USPTO: Christina Hieber of the USPTO