Recommended Reading: Ted Davis, "Inter Partes Litigation and Ex Parte Appeals Before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board: A Primer"

Trademark scholar and expert Ted Davis provides a useful and highly readable primer on practice before the TTAB in his article, "Inter Partes Litigation and Ex Parte Appeals Before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board: A Primer" [pdf here], properly cited as: Davis, Theodore H. Jr. (2026) "Inter Partes Litigation and Ex Parte Appeals Before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board: A Primer," Akron Law Review: Vol. 59: Iss. 2, Article 5.

This Article introduces the Board to legal professionals who may be unfamiliar with it and the occasionally arcane aspects of Board practice. Part II addresses the composition of the Board and its jurisdiction. Part III surveys the two general types of matters heard by the Board, namely, inter partes disputes in which the Board acts as a panel of first resort hearing adversarial matters between two or more parties. Parts IV and V address the logistics of ex parte appeals to the Board and challenges to its decisions by dissatisfied litigants, respectively. Finally, Part VI examines the possibly preclusive weight received by Board decisions in later litigation between the same parties or those in privity with them

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Text Copyright John L. Welch 2026.