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Bottom line: The Board held that HandySealer is descriptive for electrical sealers for household purposes in Class 7.

Welcome Corporation Ltd., the holder, file an application for stylized HandySealer shown below for electrical sealers for household purposes in Class 7.  The application was registered without any office action despite a letter of protest.

<Registered mark in dispute>

LEC Inc. raised an invalidation action against the registration on various grounds, among which the Board found Section 3-1-3 (descriptive mark) applicable.  More particularly, the Board found as follows:

- The stylization of the registered mark is ordinary lettering.  Both words composing the mark are common English words well-adopted in Japanese.  The mark as a whole refers to a sealing device that is a suitable size and easy to operate.

- There are many references in which “handy sealer” or its phonetic equivalent in katakana is used by third parties in the relevant industry.

- Accordingly, the registered mark merely consists of descriptive term and does not function as a source identifier.

And so the Board sustained the invalidation.