Federal Circuit Reverses TTAB: Strength of Mark Depends on Commercial Association

In In re: Bayou Grande Coffee Roasting Co., No. 24-1118 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 9, 2025), the Federal Circuit reversed the TTAB’s determination that use of the mark “KAHWA” for identifying cafés and coffee shops was not registrable, holding there was no evidence of record to establish the term was either generic or merely descriptive.

Generic terms cannot be registered because the terms are incapable of indicating the source of goods or services. The TTAB affirmed the examiner’s refusal to register “KAHWA” since the term refers to a specific type of Kashmiri green tea and cafés and coffee shops serve a variety of tea beverages. The Federal Circuit disagreed, instead finding there was no evidence of record showing any cafés or coffee shops in the United States that served kahwa, and therefore, any customer association of khawa as a specific type of green tea is insufficient to establish genericness for cafés and coffee shops that sell coffee and other types of tea.

Similarly, descriptive marks monopolize common language used to describe key aspects of goods and services and generally cannot be registered. The Federal Circuit  rejected the TTAB’s determination that kawha was merely descriptive for cafes and coffee shops, holding that the absence of evidence regarding sales of kahwa necessarily means that selling kahwa, alone, is not characteristic of café and coffee shop services.