In this paper, I present an empirical review of the over 400 trademark applications that have been filed with the USPTO since January 2020 for the terms "Covid," "Covid-19," and "Coronavirus." The purpose of this review is twofold.

First, I use this survey to highlight the various issues that may affect the examination, and in turn the registrability, of these terms. In this respect, I divide the trademark applications into four groups: (1) applications filed by medical or medical related business, including insurance companies, which use the terms descriptively as art of the definition of their goods and services; (2)applications filed by unrelated businesses, such as producers or distributors of culinary products or baby clothes, which use the terms arbitrarily to identify their goods and services; (3) applications filed by individuals or businesses for merchandising products, primarily t-shirts, hats, scarfs, mugs, and other similar gadgets; (4) applications filed also by individuals or businesses, again primarily for merchandising products, but for terms that specifically combine the words "Covid," "Covid-19," and "Coronavirus" with slurs and derogatory wording. In particular, I highlight the following issues for each of these groups: (1) for the first group, the use of the terms at issue may be considered generic, or at least descriptive thus the registration of these marks will largely depend on evidence of secondary meaning and possibly clarification that the terms at issue are not claimed as part of the marks, with the exception of the graphical representation (based on distinctive colors or fonts); (2) for the second group, the use of the terms is considered, under US law, arbitrary, and these registrations may be granted as long as the marks may not be used to deceive the public as to the quality and origin of the products; (3) for the third group, based on recent decisions and guideline of the USPTO, these applications may be (and should be in my view) largely unsuccessful based on the fact that the use of the terms is not used as a mark, but the terms are largely used as "decorative" elements without a purposive function as indicators of commercial origin, or affiliation with such origin; (4) for the fourth group, even though it is possible to register slurs as marks today in the US, these applications may also be rejected at large for their failure to function as trademarks, again being primarily "decorations" affixed to promotional products, and not identifiers of an actual source of goods and services (unlike the now famous FUCT trademark, which identifies an established line of clothing). On the other hand, should a business or individual submit an application for a slur including "Covid," "Covid-19," or "Coronavirus" for an actual product or activities, these applications would be examined as those in the second group.

Second, I use this survey to underline a trend, which is unfortunately well-known to experts: the rush to attempt to register as trademarks terms that have become popular for a variety of reason in the US (or abroad), in order to secure their exclusive use even though, very frequently, applicants do not use nor intend to use these terms as source identifiers of their businesses but rather to capitalize on the sensation, or the tragedy, of the moment. In particular, these "sensational or tragical" trademark applications are, in the large majority of cases, filed to secure exclusive rights on the use of these terms on promotional products. In recent years, the USPTO has paid more attention to these types of trademark applications (and abuse thereof) and found in several cases that, if granted, these signs would not function as trademarks, or would not be used as trademarks, but rather as decorations on products. In other words, they would be aesthetically functional. Courts have supported this view, even though judicial decisions—as well as the decisions of the USPTO—are still inconsistent on the issue. That said, this paper does not argue against merchandising rights— the right to use one's mark on promotional goods and service—per se. As I have argued in the past, I support merchandising rights when the marks are used, based licensing agreements, on promotional products and such use indeed has a promotional function: that is, identifying goods or services that are affiliated or sponsored by an existing business, which has created goodwill—for example Harley-Davidson clothing, or Ferrari keychains and hats. Hence, the rush to trademark "Covid," "Covid-19," or "Coronavirus" is not driven by existing businesses, but rather by profiteers who attempt to profit from the sensation or tragedy of a moment by claiming exclusive rights on slogans or slurs, to be slapped, most often on a t-shirt, a mug, or a scarf. The trademark system was not created to support this type of trademark profiteering, which results in endless applications that, even if they would likely be rejected, still add costs and create backlogs for the already complex bureaucracy of the USPTO and its examiners. Thus, as hopefully the world will soon find a vaccine against Covid-19 caused by the novel coronavirus, trademark law should be reforms to prevent this ongoing type of "rushing to trademarking everything" pandemic.