The USPTO and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB” or the “Board”) have been trending towards refusing marks and affirming refusals where the trademarks are legally identical, and where the goods are complementary, or in other cases where the goods are intrinsically related. The burden is on the Applicant…
Once an Examining Attorney refuses a trademark application on the grounds of likelihood of confusion (2(d) grounds), it is unlikely the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB” or the “Board”) will reverse the refusal. Statistics demonstrate that approximately nine out of ten times, the Board will affirm a likelihood of…
If a defendant fails to answer a complaint filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”), within the set time, the Board may issue a notice of default. The notice of default will inform the defaulting party that no answer was submitted, nor was a motion filed to extend…
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…
Trademark practitioners can barely keep up with the decisions being issued by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB” or the “Board”) in the area of surnames. In relatively recent times, the TTAB was focusing on the importance of the rareness of the surname. Then in the spring of this…
The Opposer or Petitioner in a proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) has the burden of proof to demonstrate there was no use of the mark in commerce prior to the time the trademark application was filed. This showing must be made by a preponderance of…
Since the precedential decision of In re Bay State Brewing Co., 119 USPQ2d 1958 (TTAB 2016), the Board has more carefully reviewed Consent Agreements. Some may say the TTAB has since been scrutinizing Consent Agreements, seeking to find very detailed reasons for why confusion will not occur between two sources in…
In a recent Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB” or the “Board”) decision issued on October 13, 2017, the TTAB rejected the Applicant’s claim of acquired distinctiveness. See John Edward Guzman d/b/a Club Ed Surf School and Camp v. The New Santa Cruz Surf School, LLC, Opposition No.912208843 (October 13,…
In a very recent Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) decision, there was a reversal of a 2(d) refusal. See our webpage entitled, Likelihood Of Confusion Refusals, for more information on the likelihood of confusion analysis and the DuPont factors. The case here involved the marks MMD & Design …
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…