Court Opinion

ID: 9453620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:19:15.101998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:44.231715
License: Public Domain

RICH, Judge
(dissenting).
I disagree with the majority’s suggestion that the public interest demands denial of this registration. It is, I think, a self-evident proposition that confusion, mistake, or deception will not follow the registration of a trademark by its owner. In re National Distillers and Chemical Corp., 297 F.2d 941, 948, 49 CCPA 854, 862 (1962) (concurring). In this case appellant appears to have an undisputed, judicially sanctioned, right to use “A. Zildjian & Cie” as a trademark. It has become clear to me that in cases of this particular kind, at least, registration should not be denied. Cf. Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Dunhill Tailored Clothes, Inc., 293 F.2d 685, 49 CCPA 730 (1961).
Nor is it a forceful rebuttal, in my opinion, to point with uncritical reverence to the literal wording of section 2(d). “A restrictive meaning for what appear to be plain words may be indicated by the Act as a whole, [or] by the persuasive gloss of legislative history * * United States v. Wit-kovich, 353 U.S. 194, 199, 77 S.Ct. 779, 782, 1 L.Ed.2d 765 (1957) (Frankfurter, J.). In my concurring opinion in National Distillers, I tried to show that neither a consideration of the Lanham Act as a whole nor an analysis of its legislative history could justify a literal reading of section 2(d). I can only add that the weight of subsequent scholarly comment has been overwhelmingly in favor of conforming the register with the marketplace. See R. Callmann, Trademarks: The Right To Use vs. The Right To Register: The Dunhill Case, 51 T.M.R. 1209 (1961); J. Lunsford, The Right To Use and The Right To Register- — -The Trade-Mark Anomaly, 43 T. M.R. 1 (1953); D. Robert, Commentary on the Lanham Trademark Act, 15 U. S.C.A. at 265, 271-72 (1948); D. Robert, The New Trademark Manual 53, 201 (1947); E. Yandenburgh, Concurrent Registration of Trade-Marks, 29 JPOS 720 (1947); M. Jenney, A Plea for Realism in Trade-Mark Oppositions, 29 JPOS 668 (1947). Where the right to use a trademark is undisputed, I think it should be registered.
I would reverse.