The EMOJI Trademark Trend Continues With Application for EMOJI BURGER

It's 2016, so it's only natural that many of the trademark applications filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office these days contain some form of the term EMOJI. In fact, I've blogged about many EMOJI-related trademark applications in the past (like PETMOJI, TRUMPMOJI, EMOJIBALMS, EMOJI BANDAGES, and EMOJI CARDS).

The latest application in this trend appears to be a restaurant near New York City that filed a federal trademark application for EMOJI BURGER on September 26th (this appears to be the name of the restaurant itself).  The restaurant filed the application in Class 043 for "restaurant services" and has been using the mark at least as early as December 18, 2015 (according to the application).

According to my quick search, there are 179 live trademark applications or registrations containing the term EMOJI at the Trademark Office.  Additionally, there appears to be 409 live trademark applications or registrations for marks containing the component -MOJI (like TRUMPMOJI), although some of those applications/registrations overlap with those appearing in the EMOJI search previously mentioned.

Regardless, the EMOJI field of trademarks is getting crowded, which highlights the importance of conducting a trademark search prior to using and filing an application for any mark.