Applicant’s Claim of Secondary Meaning in MINIMELTS Melts Down Before the Board Mini Melts opposed Reckitt’s intent-to-use applications for “MINI-MELTS” and “MINIMELTS,” alleging a likelihood of confusion with its own…

Obvious Combinations Do Not Need to Be Physically Combinable In Allied Erecting and Dismantling Co., Inc. v. Genesis Attachments, LLC, Appeal No. 2015-1533, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s invalidity…

The PTAB Does Not Have to Consider New Arguments Raised in IPR Reply Briefs In Intelligent Bio-Systems, Inc. v. Illumina Cambridge Ltd., Appeal No. 2015-1693, the Federal Circuit upheld a…

Coca-Cola has Acquired Secondary Meaning in ZERO for Colas In an opposition proceeding before the TTAB, Royal Crown (RC) and Dr. Pepper/Seven Up sought to prevent registration of seventeen applications…

Surname Not Registrable Absent Substantially Exclusive Use As a result of various third-party uses of the surname “Ayoub” for similar services, Applicant’s use of AYOUB did not meet the requirement…

Federal Circuit Construes Claim Term in a Manner that Rendered Claim Language Superfluous In SimpleAir, Inc. v. Sony Ericsson Mobile Commc’ns AB, Appeal No. 2015-1251, the Federal Circuit vacated the…

Federal Circuit Upholds Broad Scope of CBM Review and Explains that an Internet Reference Must be Indexed by a Search Engine to Qualify as a Prior Art Publication In Blue…

Broad JAWS Registration Devours JAWS Cooking Channel Mr. Recipe’s applications to register the marks JAWS and JAWS DEVOUR YOUR HUNGER were refused based on the earlier registration for JAWS, the…

TTAB Finds a Consent Agreement Failed to Tip the Balance Bay State Brewing Company’s intent-to-use application to register the mark TIME TRAVELER BLONDE for beer was rejected based on the…

Express Lexicography or Disavowal is not Required in Order to Deviate from a Claim Term’s Ordinary Meaning In Trustees of Columbia Univ. v. Symantec Corp., Appeal No. 2015-1146, the Federal…