Primarily merely

FIOR has been allowed registration as a trademark for direct reduction iron ore. A Canadian Court found that FIOR was both a rare surname and an acronym (formed from the first letters of the words "fluid iron ore reduction"). The Court noted that from the point of view of the people called "Fior" and their immediate circle of friends and acquaintances, "Fior" was principally if not exclusively a surname. On the other hand, from the point of view of the trademark applicant, it was principally if not merely an invented word. However, the test is not the reaction of either of these classes of persons. The test is what would be the response of the general public to the word. The Court concluded "that a person in Canada of ordinary intelligence and of ordinary education in English or French would be just as likely, if not more likely, to respond to the word by thinking of it as a brand or mark of some business as to respond to it by thinking of some family of people". Thus, FIOR was not primarily merely a surname.

ELDER'S has been allowed registration as a trademark for non-alcoholic beverages, namely soft drinks. In this particular case the conflict was between the surname Elder and the many dictionary meanings of the word "elder". The Federal Court found that the two characters of the word ELDER, one as a surname and the other as a dictionary word, were each of substantial significance and therefore it could not have been said that the word was "primarily" a surname. The Court concluded that a person of ordinary intelligence and ordinary education in the English language would not assign to the word "ELDER" a more dominant characteristic either as a surname or as a dictionary word. As a result, the trademark application was allowed.

NISHI has been allowed registration as a trademark for electronic equipment. The Trademarks Opposition Board found that NISHI was not a rare surname in Vancouver, but was a rare surname elsewhere in Canada and in the Province of British Columbia. Therefore, although a number of people in Vancouver might have recognized NISHI as a surname, it could not have been said that a majority of Canadians, or even a majority of Canadians in a significant area of Canada (for example, British Columbia), would have recognized Nishi as a surname. Moreover, it could not have been said that the number of Canadians recognizing NISHI as a surname was significantly greater than those recognizing it as a Japanese word meaning "west". Thus, NISHI was not primarily merely a surname.

MARIO VALENTINO has been refused registration as a trademark for clothing. Mario Valentino was the name of a now deceased designer and thus met the test in the first step as being the name of someone having died within the previous thirty years. The Federal Court rejected the notion that, because other designers had registered their names, this created any assumption that designers' names were somehow registrable as trademarks in and of themselves.