To: | Coding Institute, LLC (ip@wyrick.com) |
Subject: | U.S. Trademark Application Serial No. 88292923 - THE CODING INSTITUTE - 027220.081 |
Sent: | January 30, 2020 01:08:50 PM |
Sent As: | ecom111@uspto.gov |
Attachments: | Attachment - 1 Attachment - 2 Attachment - 3 Attachment - 4 Attachment - 5 Attachment - 6 Attachment - 7 Attachment - 8 |
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
Office Action (Official Letter) About Applicant’s Trademark Application
U.S. Application Serial No. 88292923
Mark: THE CODING INSTITUTE
|
|
Correspondence Address: WYRICK ROBBINS YATES & PONTON LLP 4101 LAKE BOONE TRAIL, SUITE 300
|
|
Applicant: Coding Institute, LLC
|
|
Reference/Docket No. 027220.081
Correspondence Email Address: |
|
NONFINAL OFFICE ACTION
The USPTO must receive applicant’s response to this letter within six months of the issue date below or the application will be abandoned. Respond using the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS). A link to the appropriate TEAS response form appears at the end of this Office action.
Issue date: January 30, 2020
Note: The examining attorney mistakenly withdrew the appropriate Merely Descriptive refusal. As such, that refusal is being reissued in this office action.
The disclaimer of CODING is WITHDRAWN because the mark as a whole is descriptive.
The examining attorney apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused.
“Whether consumers could guess what the product [or service] is from consideration of the mark alone is not the test.” In re Am. Greetings Corp., 226 USPQ 365, 366 (TTAB 1985).
In this case, applicant’s mark is THE CODING INSTITUTE for, “Printed publications, namely, books, newsletters, magazines and articles all in the fields of the health care industry, insurance billing, Medicare compliance and reimbursement, HIPAA, and medical practice management; printed publications, namely, wall charts, laminated sheets, namely paper charts with laminate coating, booklets and bound flip charts all featuring insurance billing codes for use in the medical field; Business management consultancy and advisory services, namely, administration of patient billing; Business administration, namely, financial record-keeping for regulatory compliance with reimbursement requirements; Administration, billing and reconciliation of accounts on behalf of others; Medical billing; Providing reimbursement benchmarking information and other market intelligence to healthcare organizations; Business consulting in the field of financial record-keeping for regulatory compliance with reimbursement requirements; Providing an online website featuring information pertaining to the field of medical practice management for others; Medical chart records coding services for others in the nature of assignment of diagnostic and procedural codes for purposes of reimbursement from insurance; Business auditing; Business administration of patient reimbursement programs; Financial record-keeping of patients' medical chart records for regulatory compliance with reimbursement requirements, namely, review and analysis of the medical chart records coding of others to confirm compliance with reimbursement requirements; Business administration services in the field of healthcare; Computer data entry services for healthcare compliance reporting; Providing an online website featuring information pertaining to the field of healthcare.”
CODING is defined as, “the process of assigning a code to something for the purposes of classification or identification; a code assigned for the purpose of classification or identification.”
INSTITUTE is defined as, “a society or organization having a particular object or common factor, especially a scientific, educational, or social one; a research institute.” In other words, applicant is an organization or INSTITUTE having the common factor of medicine or healthcare. As such, INSTITUTE describes a characteristic of the services.
Therefore, the mark THE CODING INSTITUTE is descriptive because it describes the nature and purpose, as well as the characteristic of applicant’s goods and services.
Registration is therefore refused under Section 2e1.
Telephone for Clarification Recommended
TEAS PLUS OR TEAS REDUCED FEE (TEAS RF) APPLICANTS – TO MAINTAIN LOWER FEE, ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS MUST BE MET, INCLUDING SUBMITTING DOCUMENTS ONLINE: Applicants who filed their application online using the lower-fee TEAS Plus or TEAS RF application form must (1) file certain documents online using TEAS, including responses to Office actions (see TMEP §§819.02(b), 820.02(b) for a complete list of these documents); (2) maintain a valid e-mail correspondence address; and (3) agree to receive correspondence from the USPTO by e-mail throughout the prosecution of the application. See 37 C.F.R. §§2.22(b), 2.23(b); TMEP §§819, 820. TEAS Plus or TEAS RF applicants who do not meet these requirements must submit an additional processing fee of $125 per class of goods and/or services. 37 C.F.R. §§2.6(a)(1)(v), 2.22(c), 2.23(c); TMEP §§819.04, 820.04. However, in certain situations, TEAS Plus or TEAS RF applicants may respond to an Office action by authorizing an examiner’s amendment by telephone or e-mail without incurring this additional fee.
How to respond. Click to file a response to this nonfinal Office action.
/Inga Ervin/
Trademark Examining Attorney
Law Office 111
United States Patent & Trademark Office
571-272-9379
571-273-9379(fax)
Inga.Ervin@uspto.gov
RESPONSE GUIDANCE