Tuesday, August 10, 2010

WYHA? TTAB Affirms 2(d) Refusal in Two-Page Opinion

In what may be its shortest Section 2(d) opinion ever, the Board affirmed a refusal to register the mark US CANTEEN & Design (below) for "non-leaching metal water bottles sold empty," finding the mark likely to cause confusion with the registered mark USCANTEEN for "plastic and metal water bottles sold empty." Would you have appealed? In re USCANTEEN INC., Serial No. 76695792 (July 30, 2010) [not precedential].


Let's cut to the chase. The substantive part of the Board's decision is contained in a single sentence:

We affirm the refusal to register inasmuch as (i) the goods are legally identical and (ii) the marks are identical as to sound and substantially the same as to connotation and commercial impression.

The Board then noted an oddity regarding this case:

It is troubling that applicant and registrant share the same address [58 School Street, Glen Cove, New York 11542], and at the time of the appeal, both applicant and registrant were represented by the same counsel – although this puzzling set of facts was neither noted by the Trademark Examining Attorney nor apparently recognized by applicant’s counsel at the time, Mr. Myron Amer.

Strange indeed. Anyway, the Board wasted no time in sustaining the 2(d) refusal.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2010.

1 Comments:

At 8:36 PM, Blogger Pamela Chestek said...

They usually center the drawing - but it's on the right here. Hmmm, I think they were having some fun to see if they could actually do it in two pages.

 

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