Despite TTAB Genericness Ruling, Raytheon Sues Lockheed for Infringement of PAVEWAY for Laser-Guided Bombs

In September 2011, the TTAB sustained Lockheed's opposition to Raytheon's application to register PAVEWAY for laser-guided bombs and bomb kits, on the ground of genericness. [TTABlogged here]. Raytheon did not appeal that decision, but it has now sued Lockheed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, seeking a declaratory judgment that PAVEWAY is not generic, and asserting claims of unfair competition and false designation of origin under Section 43(a), as well as claims under state statutory and common law. [Complaint here].



As to the TTAB's decision finding the term PAVEWAY to be generic for laser-guided bombs, Raytheon provides the following summary at pages 2-3 of the complaint:

From 2005 to 2011, Raytheon and Lockheed engaged in a six-year battle over the registrability of the PAVEWAY mark in the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Board .... Based in part on Lockheed's own efforts to use the mark in a generic fashion and to influence the perceptions in the market, Lockheed was able to convince the TTAB that PAVEWAY is a generic term primarily based on evidence from 2005, three years after Lockheed entered the market. However ... in this Court and in the Ninth Circuit, the distinctiveness of the PAVEWAY mark must be determined at the time that Lockheed entered the market in 2002. At that time and continuing to the present, the PAVEWAY mark was and continues to be a distinctive mark identifying Raytheon as the source of LGBs.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2012.