A recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) reminds trademark owners that adopting marks that are merely descriptive may require a high level of proof to register on the Principal Register. See In re JC Hospitality LLC, Appeal Nos, 2018-2048 and 2018-2049 (Fed. Cir.…
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board” or “TTAB”) recently reversed a refusal to register a mark on the grounds of likelihood of confusion. See In re Marathon Tours, Inc., Serial No. 86086458 (January 23, 2020) [not precedential]. In this case, it was a bit surprising that the Board…
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “CAFC”) affirmed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (the “Board”) decision refusing to register the marks CORN THINS and RICE THINS for snack foods, and vacated the Board’s decision dismissing a claim that these same marks were generic. See Real…
In a recent case decided by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board” or the “TTAB”), the applicant argued that its proposed mark, ATHLETE INTELLIGENCE was suggestive of the goods requiring the consumer to use a multistep reasoning process. See In re i1 Sensortech, Inc., Serial No. 87249539 (November 9,…
In a recently issued Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB” or the “Board”) decision, we are reminded that using a geographically descriptive term in a trademark may risk a refusal by the Examining Attorney and the Board could affirm the refusal. See In re National Association of Veterinary Technicians in…
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board or the “TTAB”) issued this precedential decision at the end of March 2018, and it was a partial win for the Applicant. The Applicant, Serial Podcast LLC, filed three applications at the United States Patent & Trademark Office {“USPTO”), one word mark…
Disclaimers seem simple on the surface, but there are important issues to consider when determining whether or not to disclaim certain terms in a proposed trademark. See our webpage entitled, Trademark Disclaimers for the fundamentals on what a disclaimer is and why it might be required under trademark law for…
In this recent Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision, In re Fowles Wine Pty Ltd., Serial No. 79157017 (September 15, 2017) [not precedential], the Board affirmed the refusal of the Examining Attorney. The interesting aspect to this decision is one of the grounds for refusal was failure to function as…
A recent decision from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB” or the “Board”), reminds trademark applicants that if there is a term that has taken on significance or meaning in a particular industry and this term immediately conveys information about the goods or services identified in your trademark application,…
On first glance, this decision appears to be an unexpected result especially in light of the prior registration owned by the Appellant for the word mark CHURRASCOS for the same restaurant services. However, when viewing general principles of trademark law, maybe the outcome is not so unexpected. Regardless of your…