Pamela Chestek, IP Ownership Guru, on Koolatron and Wella

At her Property, Intangible blog, IP ownership guru Pam Chestek takes a closer look (here) at the Board's decision in In re Koolatron Corporation, Serial No. 76692281 (September 29, 2010) [not precedential].

It may make business sense to put ownership of related trademarks in different subsidiaries. Under In re Wella, one can generally register similar marks owned by sibling companies, as long as it's done properly.

But In re Koolatron Corp. discloses a risk I hadn't thought about before, that is, that the registrations won't serve the function of preventing the registration of the same or similar marks. How is that, you say?

TTABlog comment: So what happens next? An opposition naming joint opposers?

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2010.