• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, December 20, 2006

Redux Beverages was this close to snagging a federal trademark for its energy drink, Cocaine, when Ohio law students filed an objection as part of a class project. Now it looks as though Cocaine may join Bullshit in the Department of Trademarks That Never Were.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) sent the application back to the examining attorney earlier for reconsideration this month.

John Welch, a registered patent attorney with more than three decades of experience in patent and trademark litigation, predicts that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) will reject Cocaine, much as it did Bullshit, in February. Red Bull applied for that trademarked name, which was rejected on the grounds that it is "scandalous."

"The board found Bullshit to be a vulgar term," said Welch, founder/editor of "The TTABlog" (www.ttablog.com). "With Cocaine, I guess you would call it scandalous."

Meanwhile, Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume has been around since 1995, causing a scandal only in 2000 when the public complained about a sexually suggestive print ad. Welch opined in his blog that Opium was accepted as a trademark because it "isn't targeted to kids." There, he also notes that Acapulco Gold, despite its reference to marijuana, was registered for suntan lotion in 1972.

The Ohio students opposed to Cocaine said the name is not only "immoral and scandalous" but "deceptively misdescriptive" since the drink contains no cocaine, just 280 milligrams of caffeine.

Redux owner and Cocaine inventor Jamey Kirby seems to consider the matter a bunch of b.s. Expecting to produce 400,000 cases of Cocaine next month, he reportedly said: "As long as we sell drinks, I really don't care."