On My Mind Blog

If a mark is in active use only by your operating company, but a registration of the mark is owned by its subsidiary, special steps may be necessary to register that mark, or even to preserve your exclusive rights in it.

Specimen of Hex-Shaped Dice Box

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) generally refuses to register the configuration of a product as a trademark when that the configuration either is functional or does not identify a single source.  The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) usually affirms that refusal.

In the unusual case discussed below, the USPTO approved a configuration trademark.  That application was opposed upon publication, but the TTAB dismissed the opposition.  This case is instructive as to how to succeed in registering a product configuration trademark under appropriate circumstances.

About nine years ago, we posted a blog about “How a company name can be a trademark.”  Now, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has again clarified the reverse--a trade name used solely as a company designation cannot be registered as a trademark.

Many times, two marks have been found likely to be confused despite (1) the addition of a second word to the later mark (found not to overcome that mark’s use of the identical or similar word used by the prior mark), or (2) different design features (which were found to be dominated by the identical or similar word portions of the marks). 

However, a different result was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) in affirming a decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) that the marks-in-issue were not likely to cause confusion.

                          Opposer’s Design Mark                                         Applicant’s Design Mark