I found this from 2015 (a trademark application turned down): http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/03/03/us-application-bitcoin-trademark-turned/
Excerpt:
Quote
The trademarking of Bitcoin and related products is not a new thing in the industry. The Bitcoin Foundation has previously reported that there are at least 35 marks alone in the US that contains the word Bitcoin in it. At the same time, the non-official Bitcoin advocacy group also opposed the idea of trademarking the digital currency.
“It is a generic term like the terms used for other currencies such as “dollar”, “euro,” “yen,” etc,” it had stated. “The Foundation is committed to doing what it can to protect the term “BITCOIN” for public use.”
“It is a generic term like the terms used for other currencies such as “dollar”, “euro,” “yen,” etc,” it had stated. “The Foundation is committed to doing what it can to protect the term “BITCOIN” for public use.”
I see the argument of the Bitcoin Foundation that the word "bitcoin" is a generic term. Have they considered obtaining a written determination from the USPTO that specifically recognizes it as a generic term, so that it would never be able to be trademarked "stand-alone"? In the alternative, they could actually consider trademarking it and then granting an unlimited rights license to Bitcoin Core. These actions could give the Foundation a better ability to protect the mark, as they indicate they are committed to.
Without a written determination that USPTO considers the term generic, I could see a successful legal argument be made that bitcoin is a distinctive "brand" of currency vis-a-vis Disney Dollars. Unless the Foundation is carefully monitoring trademark applications, something could slip by.