Financial Services

The defendant retained us to design and run the study. We used a test-versus-control format, which isolates the net source association above the baseline association already present in the market.

The sample was hundreds of professionals working in the insurance market at issue. The test group saw the unstylized mark and chose whether one provider, more than one provider, or no provider used it. The control group got the same question about a fabricated descriptive term with similar characteristics but none of the disputed trademark elements.

The test group’s single-provider share did not exceed the control group’s, which gives a net secondary meaning of 0%. In the open-ended responses, only a small fraction of respondents could name the plaintiff when asked which provider they associated with the term.

The term appears to function descriptively in the market, not as an identifier for any one company.

The test-versus-control design removed baseline category associations. The findings provided evidence against source association among the surveyed consumers; the legal determination of secondary meaning depends on the full record.