[E-trademarks] Another Standard Character Mark Anomaly: The NBSP Character

[Ken Boone]

Aside from non-Latin characters in wordmarks that visually strongly resemble Latin characters in the drawing, here's another standard character mark anomaly: the NBSP character.

The search WD:* * AND LD:true AND MD:standard retrieves 45 live standard character marks.  You should be scratching your head with that search result, but here's why: the blank space for the WD:* * part is the ASCII character with decimal value 160, a non-breaking space (NBSP) which Google AI describes as follows.

The character with the decimal value 160 is a non-breaking space (NBSP).
While standard ASCII only defines characters for decimal values 0-127, extended ASCII character sets, such as ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1), include characters up to 255. In these extended sets, 160 consistently represents the non-breaking space.
The non-breaking space looks identical to a regular space (decimal 32) but prevents an automatic line break from occurring at its position, which is useful in typography and web design to keep certain words or numbers together.
Decades ago, I noted that this non-breaking space character should be included in the USPTO's standard character set; else, any trademark that included this non-breaking space character was disqualified from being a standard character mark. Here's the relevant text from the TMEP.

807.03(b)    List of Standard Characters
The USPTO has created a standard character set that lists letters, numerals, punctuation marks, and diacritical marks that may be used in a standard character drawing.  The standard character set is available on the USPTO website at https://www.uspto.gov/trademark/standard-character-set. If the applicant has claimed standard character format and the drawing includes elements that are not in the set, then the examining attorney must treat the drawing as a special form drawing, ensure that the mark drawing code is changed, and require the applicant to delete the standard character claim.  See TMEP §807.18 concerning mark drawing codes.

In a §66(a) application, if the drawing includes elements that are not in the standard character set, the examining attorney must require deletion of the standard character claim even though the international registration indicates that the mark is in standard characters.   See Guide to International Registration, B.II.07.44.

Alas, the USPTO has yet to add the non-breaking space character with decimal value 160 to the USPTO's standard character list.  Apparently, legal opinions vary on whether the NBSP character is a valid standard character.  If you can't see it in the drawing, ...

Following are some live/dead standard character marks with the non-breaking blank space character in the wordmark.  I particularly liked 99068513 SPIRITED  PROPERITY in that the drawing split the word PROPERITY over two lines rather than break at the non-breaking blank space.

99260236 SAINT SOVÉR
[Image for 99260236]
99093382 INDEPENDENT COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION (ICAA)[Image for 99093382]
99068513 SPIRITED  PROPERITY[Image for 99068513]
98902225 PROFESSIONAL RECRUITING | RETAINED SEARCH | PROJECT & INTERIM SERVICES ACCOUNTING · FINANCE · TAX · AUDIT[Image for 98902225]
98869965 WISELY  - WOMEN IN STEM & ENGINEERING LEADING YOUTH[Image for 98869965]
98844599 V I Z U N  W E A R[Image for 98844599]
98610557 TELEŌ COLLECTION[Image for 98610557]
98399318 BDBF BEST "DAM" BLUES FEST[Image for 98399318]
98164791 WEDDING READY FITNESS + WELLNESS[Image for 98164791]
90218759 DIG IT · LOAD IT · LIFT IT · RENT IT[Image for 90218759]
88191188 JACOBSON HAT COMPANY[Image for 88191188]
87750769 SPLASH BROTHERS CUSTOMIZED[Image for 87750769]
79427694 LOBSTER BRAND HIệU TôM HùM[Image for 79427694]
78328986 ALL SPARKLE NO FIZZ[Image for 78328986]
78328499 JC - BEAT THE THE TO PUNCH![Image for 78328499]
76117819 THE INNER BODY WORKOUT[Image for 76117819]

If you haven't guessed, I used this anomaly to play with the concept of Trademark Search displaying just the drawings, the no text concept I tried to present to this discussion group last week. I'd say including the wordmarks is distracting - that just the serial numbers above the drawings would display better, and the drawings with design elements are more easily identified (assuming someone used Trademark Search to review the standard character marks in the publication queue).

Another anomaly is revealed by the search WD:*Μ* AND LD:true AND ST:true which currently retrieves 12 pending standard character mark, namely

SN
FiledDate
Wordmark
99171959
2025-05-06
ΜINVASIVE SURGERY
99172015
2025-05-06
THE ΜINVASIVE SURGICAL COMPANY
99312742
2025-07-31
ΜITUS
99370606
2025-09-02
ΜTUMA
99370614
2025-09-02
ΜBMG
98761636
2024-09-20
Μ - MATERIAL MACHINE
99331582
2025-08-11
BIG IDEAS AT ΜSCALE
99255855
2025-06-27
ΜPERKER
99370541
2025-09-02
ΜIBIR
99370553
2025-09-02
ΜBNSR
99321429
2025-08-05
ΜMUX
99171987
2025-05-06
THE ΜINVASIVE SURGICAL PROCEDURE COMPANY

where the drawings show the standard character µ (part of the extended ASCII character set) but the wordmark has the Greek unicode character Μ (the Greek Capital Letter Mu (U+039C)). But once the standard character mark hits the publication queue and I complain, the USPTO usually corrects the wordmark by substituting the standard character µ for the Greek unicode character Μ. But why should I have to complain?

Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone
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