J.C. Penney Co. Inc. has asked a federal court in its home state of Texas for a declaratory ruling on whether a style of weather-resistant boots that it recently started selling can continue to be called “Aspen” for certain labeling and packaging purposes, according to the Denver Post.
In November, Aspen Licensing International, a Boynton Beach, FL., company, sent a cease-and-desist demand letter to J.C. Penney to stop selling cold-weather boots under the style name “Aspen,” according to the federal complaint. Aspen Licensing owns a trademark for word “aspen” for various commercial uses.
“Aspen is a weak trademark as a matter of law and is entitled to only a narrow scope of protection, if any,” J.C. Penney’s complaint states, according to the article in the Denver Post. “Defendant’s Aspen mark lacks commercial strength because it is commonly used by third parties in the marketplace in connection with footwear and because of its generic reference to a geographical location.”
