Coined Words in the Cattle Industry: THOROUGHBREED and BLENDBREED Win Distinctiveness Hearing

Coined Words in the Cattle Industry: THOROUGHBREED and BLENDBREED Win Distinctiveness Hearing

Trade mark examiners are cautious about descriptive words — and rightly so. Granting a monopoly over language that honest traders need to describe their goods undermines fair competition. But there's an important line between words that are descriptive and words that merely suggest something without being directly descriptive. The Australian SimAngus Cattle Breeders Association navigated that line successfully in a recent ex parte hearing, securing trade mark acceptance for two coined expressions that had never appeared in the industry's vocabulary.

Background: SimAngus Breeding and a Quality Program

The Australian SimAngus Cattle Breeders Association promotes and registers SimAngus cattle — a cross between Simmental and Angus breeds known for combining the muscling and growth rates of Simmental with the temperament and market suitability of Angus. The Association sought to register four trade marks across a broad range of classes covering cattle-related goods and services: THOROUGHBREED, BLENDBREED, SIMANGUS THOROUGHBREED, and SIMANGUS BLENDBREED.

The examiner objected. THOROUGHBREED looked too much like "thoroughbred" — a word suggesting purity of breeding — and BLENDBREED appeared to describe a mixed or blended breed. Both seemed, on first glance, to be descriptive of characteristics relevant to cattle breeding programs.

The Association's Argument

The Association appeared at the ex parte hearing represented by counsel instructed by HWLE Lawyers, and mounted a careful argument on three fronts.

First, neither THOROUGHBREED nor BLENDBREED appears in any dictionary. They are invented composite expressions — not words that traders in the cattle industry currently use or have ever used to describe their animals or programs.

Second, searches of Trove — the National Library's digitised newspaper and publication archive — confirmed that neither term appeared in the Australian cattle industry literature. The industry uses established vocabulary for breed distinctions: "purebred," "full blood," "crossbred," "hybrid," and similar terms. THOROUGHBREED and BLENDBREED are entirely outside that existing vocabulary.

Third, the critical question under trade mark law is not whether a word could be descriptive in theory, but whether honest traders would have a legitimate desire to use it. If existing language adequately covers the descriptive territory — and here, "purebred," "full blood," and "crossbred" do exactly that — then there is no compelling reason why honest traders would need THOROUGHBREED or BLENDBREED to describe their cattle.

The Decision: Acceptance for Standard Marks

Delegate Tracey Berger agreed. While THOROUGHBREED and BLENDBREED have an allusive quality — they hint at purity and blending — they are not directly descriptive. They are syntactically unusual coined expressions with no established meaning in the Australian cattle industry. The available descriptive vocabulary does not require these terms, and honest traders would not be disadvantaged by their registration as trade marks.

Both THOROUGHBREED and BLENDBREED, as standard trade marks, were directed to proceed to acceptance across their nominated classes.

The Certification Marks — SIMANGUS THOROUGHBREED and SIMANGUS BLENDBREED — involve an additional procedural step under section 177 of the Act: referral to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for assessment before they can proceed. That referral was directed.

Practical Takeaways

• Coined words can be registered even if they have allusive meaning. A mark that hints at a characteristic is not automatically descriptive. The test is whether the word directly describes, not whether it evokes an association. Allusive marks often make excellent trade marks precisely because they are distinctive without being arbitrary.

• Industry vocabulary searches are powerful tools. The Trove search was central to the outcome. Demonstrating that a claimed term has never appeared in the industry's own literature is compelling evidence that it does not form part of the descriptive vocabulary honest traders would need.

• Existing descriptive alternatives strengthen your case. Showing that the descriptive ground is already covered by established terminology (purebred, crossbred, full blood) helps establish that your invented term is not needed for descriptive purposes.

• Certification Marks have an extra procedural step. Organisations operating certification programs should factor ACCC referral into their timeline — it adds time to the registration process compared to standard trade marks.

Citation: Australian SimAngus Cattle Breeders Association Incorporated [2026] ATMO 133 (15 July 2026)

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