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

Opinion of the Court 

live  witnesses.    Procedural  differences,  by  themselves, 
however,  do  not  defeat  issue  preclusion.    Equity  courts
used different procedures than did law courts, but that did
not  bar  issue  preclusion.  See  id.,  at  333.  Nor  is  there 
reason to think that the state agency in Elliott used proce-
dures  identical  to  those  in  federal  court;  nonetheless,  the 
Court held that preclusion could apply.  See  478 U. S., at 
796–799.  Rather  than  focusing  on  whether  procedural
differences  exist—they  often  will—the  correct  inquiry  is
whether  the  procedures  used  in  the  first  proceeding  were 
fundamentally poor, cursory, or unfair.  See Montana, 440 
U. S., at 164, n. 11. 

Here, there is no categorical “reason to doubt the quality,
extensiveness,  or  fairness,”  ibid.,  of  the  agency’s  proce-
dures.  In  large  part  they  are  exactly  the  same  as  in  fed-
eral court.  See 37 CFR §§2.116(a), 2.122(a).  For instance, 
although the “[t]he scope of discovery in Board proceedings 
. . . .  is  generally  narrower  than  in  court  proceedings”—
reflecting  the  fact  that  there  are  often  fewer  usages  at
issue—the TTAB has adopted almost the whole of Federal 
Rule  of  Civil  Procedure  26.    TTAB  Manual  §402.01;  see 
also id., §401.  It is conceivable, of course, that the TTAB’s 
procedures may prove ill-suited for a particular issue in a 
particular  case,  e.g.,  a  party  may  have  tried  to  introduce
material  evidence  but  was  prevented  by  the  TTAB  from
doing so, or the TTAB’s bar on live testimony may materi-
ally  prejudice  a  party’s  ability  to  present  its  case.    The 
ordinary  law  of  issue  preclusion,  however,  already  ac-
counts for those “rare” cases where a “compelling showing
of  unfairness”  can  be  made.  Restatement  (Second)  of
Judgments §28, Comments g and j, at 283–284. 

The  Eighth  Circuit  likewise  erred  by  concluding  that
Hargis  bore  the  burden  of  persuasion  before  the  TTAB.
B&B, the party opposing registration, bore the burden, see 
37 CFR §2.116(b); TTAB Manual §702.04(a), just as it did
in  the  infringement  action.  Hargis  does  not  defend  the