April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Reed Elsevier Plc, owner of the LexisNexis databases, lost a U.S. appeals court bid to trademark the phrase ``lawyers.com'' for its online legal information service.

Reed Elsevier's Martindale-Hubbell unit has run the lawyers.com Web site since 1998 and has been seeking trademark protection since then to limit others from using the lawyers.com name to confuse consumers.

The appeals court upheld a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision to reject the application. The agency had said the phrase was generic, pointing out that others use variations, such as Massachusetts-lawyers.com, medialawyer.com and truckerlawyers.com. Reed Elsevier argued that its site had ``acquired distinctiveness.''

``For better or worse, lawyers are necessarily an integral part of the information exchange about legal services,'' the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled today, upholding the trademark office. The opinion was posted on the court's Web site.

Holly Michael, a spokeswoman for LexisNexis, which operates Martindale-Hubbell, didn't immediately return a voice mail message seeking comment. Reed Elsevier, based in London, also publishes Variety magazine and is planning to sell its Harcourt Education publishing unit.

Bloomberg LP operates a legal information service that competes with LexisNexis.

The case is In Re Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., 06-1309, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

To contact the reporter on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 12, 2007 12:19 EDT