Opinion ID: 200968
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Basics of Trademark Law

Text: 7 Under the Lanham Act, a trademark includes any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof used by an individual or entity to identify and distinguish his or her goods ... from those manufactured or sold by others. 15 U.S.C. § 1127. Trademark rights may arise under either the Lanham Act or under common law, but in either circumstance, the right is conditioned upon use in commerce. 5 United Drug Co. v. Theodore Rectanus Co., 248 U.S. 90, 97, 39 S.Ct. 48, 63 L.Ed. 141 (1918) (establishing that the right to a particular mark grows out of its use, not its mere adoption). A mark is deemed in use in commerce when it is affixed to the goods with which it is associated and those goods are then sold or transported in commerce. 15 U.S.C. § 1127. Of particular relevance to this appeal is that sales of goods within or from the United States are not necessary to establish trademark ownership; for purposes of the Lanham Act, transportation alone qualifies. See New England Duplicating Co. v. Mendes, 190 F.2d 415, 417 (1st Cir.1951) (The use of the disjunctive `or' between `sold' and `transported' leaves no doubt that a transportation ... is enough to constitute a `use' even without a sale.). 8 However, not every transport of a good is sufficient to establish ownership rights in a mark. Planetary Motion, Inc. v. Techsplosion, Inc., 261 F.3d 1188, 1196 (11th Cir.2001). In assessing rights stemming from transportation, courts and commentators have required an element of public awareness of the use. Mendes, 190 F.2d at 418 (requiring first, adoption, and, second, use in a way sufficiently public to identify or distinguish the marked goods in an appropriate segment of the public mind ...); see also Planetary Motion, Inc., 261 F.3d at 1195 (citing Mendes, 190 F.2d at 418); Brookfield Comm., Inc. v. West Coast Entertainment Corp., 174 F.3d 1036 (9th Cir.1999) (citing Mendes, 190 F.2d at 418); Blue Bell, Inc. v. Farah Mfg. Co., 508 F.2d 1260, (5th Cir.1975) (Secret, undisclosed shipments are generally inadequate to support the denomination `use.'); 3 J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 19:118 (4th ed. 2003) (It seems clear that `transportation,' as an alternative to `sale,' requires the same elements of open and public use before customers.). 9 GHL contended below that the shipment of Kent Creme Bleach from the United States manufacturer to its United Kingdom office, followed by subsequent sales from the United Kingdom to the Middle East, was use in commerce sufficient to sustain United States ownership rights. The crux of the district court opinion was that GHL's activities lacked the public use element necessary to assert trademark rights based on transportation. Using the two step test for abandonment set forth in 15 U.S.C. § 1127, the district court then found that any trademark rights acquired by GHL from HCI had long since been abandoned on the basis of nonuse. The court thus granted KIP's request for summary judgment, which we now review de novo. See Calero-Cerezo v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 355 F.3d 6, 19 (1st Cir.2004). 10 In evaluating this claim we, like the district court, assume but do not decide that GHL legitimately acquired trademark rights from HCI in 1989. To prevail on appeal, however, GHL must demonstrate that since that acquisition, it has continued to use the mark in commerce in the United States. A trademark owner who fails to use a mark for three consecutive years may be deemed to have abandoned the mark, which would then fall into the public domain. We therefore focus our inquiry on GHL's most recent three years of use; if GHL has failed to maintain its common law rights, 6 there will be no basis for its claim of infringement. 7