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Page Number: 34

8 

B&B HARDWARE, INC. v. HARGIS INDUSTRIES, INC. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

acted in 1946, 20 years before this Court said—even in dic-
tum—that  administrative  preclusion  was  an  established 
common-law principle.  Thus, even if one thought that the 
dictum in Utah Construction were sufficient to establish a 
common-law  principle  in  favor  of  preclusion,  that  conclu-
sion would not warrant applying Astoria’s presumption to
this  enactment  from  the  1940’s.  And,  construing  the  Act
on  its  own  terms,  I  see  no  reason  to  conclude  that  Con-
gress intended administrative preclusion to apply to TTAB
findings  of  fact  in  a  subsequent  trademark  infringement 
suit.  The Act says nothing to indicate such an intent, and
several features of the Act support the contrary inference. 
The first feature indicating that Congress did not intend
preclusion  to  apply  is  the  limited  authority  the  Act  gives 
the  TTAB.   The  Act  authorizes  the  TTAB  only  to  “deter-
mine  and  decide  the  respective  rights  of  [trademark]
registration,”  15  U. S. C.  §1067(a),  thereby  withholding 
any  authority  from  the  TTAB  to  “determine  the  right  to 
use”  a  trademark  or  to  “decide  broader  questions  of  in-
fringement  or  unfair  competition,”  TTAB  Manual  of  Pro-
cedure  §102.01  (2014).  This  limited  job  description  indi-
cates that TTAB’s conclusions regarding registration were
never  meant  to  become  decisive—through  application  of 
administrative  preclusion—in  subsequent  infringement 
suits.  See 15 U. S. C. §1115(a) (providing that registration
of a mark “shall be prima facie evidence of the validity of 
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designed  to  be  a  principle  of  stability  or  repose,  [should  not]  become  a 
vehicle  of  change  whereby  an  error  in  one  area  metastasizes  into
others,  thereby  distorting  the  law”).    As  for  the  parties’  lack  of  argu-
ment, I would not treat tools of statutory interpretation as claims that
can  be  forfeited.  If,  for  example,  one  party  peppered  its  brief  with
legislative history, and the opposing party did not challenge the propri-
ety of using legislative history, I still would not consider myself bound
to  rely  upon  it.    The  same  is  true  here:  Although  the  Court  has  com-
mented  in  the  past  that  the  presumption  of  administrative  preclusion 
would apply to other statutes, we are not bound to apply it now to the 
Lanham Act, even if the parties have assumed we would.