CAFC Reverses TTAB - Remands ECHO D’ANGÉLUS Opposition Due to Lack of Substantial Evidence Supporting Dismissal
The CAFC reversed the Board's decision [here] dismissing in part an opposition to registration of the mark ECHO D’ANGÉLUS for wine, and remanded the case to the Board. The TTAB had found the mark not confusingly similar to opposer's mark ECHO DE LYNCH BAGES, also for wine, placing "great weight" on its finding that the marks "incorporate[d] different-appearing house marks as part of unitary expressions." The appellate court concluded that that finding was not supported by substantial evidence. Chateau Lynch-Bages v. Chateau Angelus S.A., Appeal No. 2024-1197 (Fed. Cir. June 13, 2025) [not precedential].
Although neither party "appeared to argue" that the marks included house marks, the Boad "opined" that “[i]t appears that ANGÉLUS and LYNCH BAGES are the parties’ ‘house marks.’” IN support of this finding, the Board observed that applicant owns four registrations that included the term “ANGELUS,” and that opposer’s name and its letterhead contained the phrase “LYNCH BAGES.”
Ultimately, the Board found that “ECHO” had “some conceptual weakness in connection with the goods at issue,” and that “the use of ECHO with D’ and DE followed by the parties’ house marks contributes significantly to the overall commercial impressions of the marks as invoking the respective house marks.”
The Board concluded that the similarities in the marks were outweighed by the dissimilarities and it deemed this the "predominant factor" in its Section 2(d) analysis. The CAFC, however, ruled that this analysis was "flawed" because it was not supported by substantial evidence.
In considering the similarity of the marks, the Board declined to place an emphasis on the common term “ECHO” because it believed that the marks were unitary expressions not dominated by this term. Appx. 21–22. Therefore, the Board’s analysis primarily revolved around comparing the terms “ANGÉLUS” and “LYNCH BAGES.” Here, rather than simply concluding that the substantial differences in the sound, appearance, and commercial impression of these terms rendered the marks dissimilar, see In re i.am.symbolic, llc, 866 F.3d 1315, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2017), the Board opted to find that the terms “appear” to be the parties’ house marks. Appx. 22.
The Board made the "observation" regarding house marks "based on its own investigation." It did not cite any authority for the proposition that applicant's ownership of multiple registrations with a common term renders that term a house mark, nor did the Board find that those marks had broad use in commerce. Moreover, the evidence that “LYNCH BAGES” was opposer’s house mark was even more sparse.
[T]he Board’s analysis was unclear, as its survey of the case law resulted in a conclusion that “none of [its] precedents” governed the situation that it concocted itself: where the competing marks supposedly contained both a shared word and each party’s house mark.
The Board’s determination that the competing marks contained house marks was erroneous, and because this finding was critical in the Board’s similarity analysis, the conclusion of dissimilarity lacked substantial evidence. Moreover, since the Board gave “predominant” weight to the similarity factor in its DuPont analysis, it is not clear whether the Board would have arrived at the same conclusion of no likelihood of confusion absent this error.
The court therefore remanded the case for additional proceedings consistent with its opinion.
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TTABlogger comment: So will the Board allow additional evidence and briefing? Or will it re-do its analysis without the "house mark" wrinkle? How do you think this will come out?
Text Copyright John L. Welch 2025.