Owning Some TM Happiness: Bubly ≠ Bubbly?

For a few months now, the Minneapolis skyway system has been flooded with a variety of fresh, creative, eye-popping advertising to promote Pepsi’s new bubly sparkling water collection:

Although not a lie (the bottles I’ve seen clearly reference Pepsi), you’d never know from this ad or the trademark registration that Pepsi is behind bubly, since an Irish entity located in Bermuda owns the mark.

Thoughts about Pepsi’s line of reasoning for having ownership rest with an Irish entity located in Bermuda? Taxes maybe?

Yet, it is clear the market knows this is a Pepsi launch, wonder what Coke, owner of Tab, thinks?

Sipping a bubbly drink, like sparkling water, necessarily has bubbles, explaining why the USPTO required a disclaimer of the word “bubbly,” even though the mark includes bubly, not bubbly.

Although it might be nice to own a standard character registration for the misspelled and un-disclaimed wording bubly, that hasn’t been attempted, as the misspelling is likely not distinctive.

Holding a word only registration for bubly doesn’t appear possible any time soon, since the double entendre is only apparent from the stylized bubly sparkling water mark, not bubly standing alone.

Double entendre? Yes, the description of the stylized mark notes the “u” in “bubly” is “depicted as a smile,” which ties into the additional meaning of “bubbly” — lively, cheerful and talks a lot.

If the words “bubbly” and “bubly” can’t be owned here, may that inspire a truncation to bub, especially given this pending intent-to-use trademark applications for bub and Bub Sparkling Water?

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