Organization for Transformative Works Files Amicus Brief Supporting Grant of Certiorari in RAPUNZEL Standing Case

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), "a nonprofit organization founded by fans, whose mission is to serve the interests of fandom by both providing access to and preserving the history of noncommercial fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms," has filed an amicus brief [pdf here] at the Supreme Court in support of Professor Revecca Curtin's petition for writ of certiorari in the RAPUNZEL case. In Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, Inc., 2025 USPQ2d 784 (Fed. Cir. 2025), the CAFC ruled that Professor Curtin, as a mere consumer, lacked statutory standing to oppose registration of the mark RAPUNZEL for dolls and toy figures. Set out below are several excerpts from OTW's amicus brief.

This Court should grant certiorari to determine the minimal scope of the rights of the public to access and use those items in the public domain. The specific issue before the Court is whether the Trademark (Lanham) Act of 1946 allows the federal government and courts, without direct authority from Congress, to exclude the public from objecting to the registration of a trademark regarding “Rapunzel,” a character that is indisputably in the public domain.

Imagine a single company being able to monopolize the market for dolls or figurines identified as the “Virgin Mary” or “Santa Claus” or “Cinderella” or “Uncle Sam,” and the public being unable to object. That is what is at stake here.

However, this Court has never addressed whether the public has standing to oppose an application to register a public domain term as the trademark of an item embodying public domain material under the framework used below as outlined in Lexmark International Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118 (2014).

In accepting the lower court’s analysis, wide swaths of now common items could be privatized in pieces thereby threatening the right of the public to use and create embodiments of characters like the Virgin Mary, Santa Claus, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and others in the public domain.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

• I. This Court Should Clarify the Role of the Public in Trademark Registration
• A. This Court has not addressed the role of the public domain in trademark registration 
• B. The Federal Circuit’s interpretation of the zone of interests for registration is unduly constrained
• i. The Lanham Act does not specify the zone of interest for opposing registration 
• C. One of the Lanham Act’s purposes is to protect the public from deceptive practices 
• E. (sic) Economic limitations and trademark bullies will drive out small businesses that participate in commerce and cater to the public.

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TTABlogger comment: The USPTO should have pulled back this application and re-examined it.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2025.