Subway has a nice knock-down argument against length complaints
Subway says "footlong" is just a descriptive (um, wouldn't that be deceptively misdescriptive?) trademark, not a statement about length.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose
it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Ch. 6
And indeed, FOOTLONG is currently the subject of opposition proceedings before the TTAB, on the grounds that the mark is not just descriptive but generic.
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