In 2019, What was the Rate of TTAB Affirmance of Section 2(d) Refusals to Register?

January 30, 2020February 4, 2020| in The TTABlog| by John L. Welch

Yours truly, the TTABlogger, has once again reviewed the TTAB’s FOIA page in an attempt to estimate the percentage of Section 2(d) likelihood-of-confusion refusals that were affirmed by the Board. I counted 235 decisions, of which 215 were affirmances and 20 reversals. That’s an affirmance rate of 91.49%, or a bit more than 9 out of 10. [very slightly above last year’s rate]. A follow-up question is: how many were WYHAs?

Not one of the Section 2(d) decisions was precedential. The 19 reversals involved the following marks: INCOGNITO, ARTEMIS, VERVE, WALL ST ALLIANCE & Des., SYNTHON, NABOSO, LEGENDARY COFFEE, CANNONBALL CREEK BREWING COMPANY GOLDEN, COLORADO & Design, THE BEAUTIFUL THING, SUPA DUPA REWARDS, HULA DELIGHTS, MECARD BATTLE ARENA, FRANCIEPANTS, THE SEARCH ENGINE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE, CMC, KWIK STOP, RAINFOREST NUTRITION, MINIBAR SMARTSNAX, INTEGRATED PERFORMANCE CARE SYSTEMS, and GROW WITH US.

The twelve marks highlighted in bold were the subject of TTABlog posts. You may find a particular post by putting the mark into the search engine box.

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TTABlog comment: In the month of September 2019, the Board affirmed all 47 Section 2(d) refusals!