A year after the Federal Trade Commission fined supplement maker TriVita Inc. $3.5 million for making unsupported health claims about its Nopalea cactus juice drink, a federal appeals court on Friday also refused to give the company a trademark registration on the juice name.
The Federal Circuit ruled that “Nopalea” couldn’t be registered as a trademark because it is merely descriptive of the drink — made from juice of the nopal cactus — that TriVita was selling with it.
Although TriVita argued that the addition of the letters “ea” at the end of “nopal” made the name “substantially different in sight and sound” from the common juice name, the court reminded the company that “Nopalea” is the full name of the plant that produces nopal juice.
“’Nopalea’ is not a made-up word obtained by adding arbitrary letters,”