Court Opinion

ID: 9477089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:13:42.239762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:41.331511
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Federal registration of the mark PEPPER MAN is squarely within the intended purview of the Lan-ham Trademark Act. Precedential authority also weighs heavily in support of registration.
The policy underlying federal registration of trade and service marks is to facilitate business activity, not to place unnecessary obstacles in its path. The policy of the Lanham Act is to “conform to legitimate present-day business practices”. D. Robert, Commentary on The Lanham Trade-Mark Act, 15 U.S.C.A. 265, 267 (1948). Importantly in connection with the issue at bar, “the Act was designed to ... create an incentive to register all valid marks in use to the end that a complete public record of such marks might be maintained and the rights of all registrants thereby secured.” Id. at 268.
This strong policy favoring registration of marks used in commerce is reflected in the decisions of this court, our predecessor Court of Customs of Patent Appeals, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which have consistently approved registration for a distinctive mark, such as PEPPER MAN, that is associated with trade and service activities. It is the exception, not the rule, when such activities have been held to be outside the compass of the Act, thus barring a trademark or service mark used in association with such activities from access to federal registration. The services with which PEPPER MAN is associated do not qualify for such exceptional treatment.
It is not registration that secures to businesses the right to own and use a particular mark; that right resides in the common law, as is recognized in the Lanham Act. Federal registration achieves additional purposes: it records that right on a public register, thereby giving notice to others; it facilitates enforcement of legitimate marks against wrongful users; it assures the right to continue to use the mark after a statutory period of unchallenged use; and it provides other commercial benefits. The statutory purpose is to facilitate, not to foreclose, access to these benefits. The Act itself is so phrased:
§ 1052. No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it [meets the requirements of sections (a) through (f), none here held applicable], [emphasis added]
These same rights extend to services:
§ 1053. Subject to the provisions relating to the registration of trademarks, so far as they are applicable, service marks used in commerce shall be registrable, in the same manner and with the same effect as are trademarks.... [emphasis added]
The Patent and Trademark Office did not assert that PEPPER MAN is not distinctive, but instead held, contrary to its own precedent, that the contest and promotional services with which it is used are not among those contemplated for service mark registration. This withdrawal of the right to registration — for the statute is written, as observed supra, in terms of *513right, not privilege — is hostile to the principles and the public purposes of the Lanham Act. The weight of past practice has granted registration to services of the type distinguished by the mark PEPPER MAN.
The statute contains the following definition of “service mark”:
15 U.S.C. § 1127 ... The term “service mark” means a mark used in the sale or advertising of services to identify and distinguish the services of one person, including a unique service, from the services of others and to indicate the source of the services, even if that source is unknown. Titles, character names and other distinctive features of radio or television programs may be registered as service marks notwithstanding that they, or the programs, may advertise the goods of the sponsor.
In American International Reinsurance Company, Inc. v. Airco, Inc., 570 F.2d 941, 943, 197 USPQ 69, 71 (CCPA), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 866, 99 S.Ct. 190, 58 L.Ed.2d 175 (1978), our predecessor court discussed the scope of services contemplated in the Lan-ham Act, remarking that:
While the Act defines the term “service mark,” it does not define the broad term “services.” Similarly, the legislative history of the Act addresses the term “service mark” but sheds little light on what was intended to be meant by “services.”
and concluded that:
It would appear self-evident that no attempt was made to define “services” simply because of the plethora of services that the human mind is capable of conceiving. This, ipso facto, would suggest that the term be liberally construed. Cognizant of the foregoing statement, each case must be decided on its own facts, giving proper regard to judicial precedent, [footnotes omitted]
Precedent has implemented this mandate for realistic, rather than constrained, statutory construction. In the case closest on its facts to those at bar, In re Congoleum Corporation, 222 USPQ 452 (TTAB 1984), the applicant conducted contests for customers, using the phrase “The Wonderful World of Congoleum”. The board held that the phrase was properly registrable as a service mark, observing that the fact that the mark used for the contests was different from that used with the product tended to show that the promotional activity could support a separate service mark. The board stated:
That an applicant uses, in conjunction with such activity, a mark different from that used in conjunction with its principal goods or services is also a factor to be considered in determining whether the activity is a service for which a service mark registration may issue.
Id. at 453-454. The board explained that registration was authorized because the contest activity conducted under the phrase was a service separate from the applicant’s principal activity; because the service was not a necessary part of the applicant’s primary business; and because the service conferred a benefit different from that normally expected from the sale of the applicant’s goods. Id. at 454.
This court’s decisions have also favored registration of separate service marks for promotional campaigns. In In re Advertising & Marketing Development, Inc., 821 F.2d 614, 620, 2 USPQ2d 2010, 2014 (Fed. Cir.1987), this court stated that “the standard for service mark registration for advertising and promotional services is the same as that for other services”, and held that the term THE NOW GENERATION, used in sales promotion campaigns for financial services and for advertising automobiles, was registrable as a service mark. This court emphasized that the “mark must be used to identify advertising services [the service for which registration was sought], not merely to identify [the] subject of the advertising.” Id. at 620, 2 USPQ2d at 2014.
The principle is also illustrated in the board’s decision in In re Universal Press Syndicate, 229 USPQ 638 (TTAB 1986), wherein the board approved the registration of “Cathy remembers” for licensing services for the cartoon character “Cathy”. No goods are purveyed under the mark “Cathy remembers”, although the licensing *514services bear a continuing relationship to those services provided with the service mark “Cathy”. In accord is the board’s holding in In re Heavenly Creations, Inc., 168 USPQ 317, 318 (TTAB 1971) (“the fact that a service may be incidental to a principal service or to the sale of goods does not make it any less of a service or make a mark used in the sale or advertising of such service any less of a service mark”) (quoting In re John Breuner Co., 136 USPQ 94, 95 (TTAB 1963)).
The decisions on service mark registration have turned on the specific facts of each case. The controlling question has been whether the services were of a nature normally expected based on the applicant’s principal activity. Most past decisions denying registration arose in cases wherein the applicant’s principal activity was the sale of goods, and the applicant sought further registration, usually of the identical mark, for services undertaken in connection with the sale of the same goods. As Professor McCarthy explained:
Promotional services consisting of conducting demonstrations solely to demonstrate use of the goods is not a “service,” but if the demonstrations do more than merely promote the sale of goods, and also generally instruct buyers in how to use this kind of product in general, then this is a “service”, as it is more than the mere normal promotion of the sale of this product, [emphases in original, footnote omitted]
1 J. McCarthy, Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 19.30 at 939-40 (2d ed. 1984). See also Ex parte Handmacher-Vogel, Inc., 98 USPQ 413 (Comr.Pats.1953), wherein the mark WEATHERVANE, registered for apparel, was held registrable to the same owner for the service of conducting promotional golf tournaments. In contrast, the board has refused registration to what it called a “promotional gimmick”, as in In re Loew’s Theaters, Inc., 179 USPQ 126, 127 (TTAB 1973).
When the services are legally required, registration has been denied. In In re Orion Research Inc., 523 F.2d 1398, 187 USPQ 485 (CCPA 1975), our predecessor court held that it was not a “service” to offer a repair or replacement warranty with the sale of goods, and therefore that the words and design associated with that warranty was not a service mark. The court, explaining the basis for its decision, distinguished the service business of repairing instruments, which the court remarked could indeed be conducted in association with a registrable service mark, from the warranty that accompanies the sale of goods, which the court held was a usual and legally required merchandising duty.
These services meet the criteria detailed in In re Landmark Communications, Inc., 204 USPQ 692, 695 (TTAB 1979), wherein the board summarized the policy represented in these decisions, and concluded that a registrable service may be “primary, incidental, or ancillary” to the product to which the service relates. The mark PEPPER MAN is used to identify specific contest promotional services, services which are neither ordinary nor routine in purveying soft drinks. These services are in a “material way a different kind of economic activity than what any purveyor of the ... tangible product necessarily provides”. Id.
Registrability requires only that the service have a sufficient independence of identity from the goods that are being promoted. It is not fatal to registration that the service has as its motivation the good will and sales benefit of “Dr Pepper” brand soft drinks. It suffices for purposes of registration if the primary signification of the service mark PEPPER MAN is the service to which it is attached.
Applicant emphasizes that the PEPPER MAN promotional contests are apart from the normal advertising of “Dr Pepper” soft drinks, and, distinguishing Orion, that there is no legal requirement for such promotional activity. Although applicant strains when it argues that the purchaser of “Dr Pepper” soft drinks does not have to drink them to win the contest, federal registration does not depend on so fine a palate. The purpose of federal registration of marks used in business is to provide *515safeguards for commercial activity, and to provide those public assurances of quality and responsibility that are borne by trade and service marks.
The majority’s decision does not bar the use of PEPPER MAN in connection with promotional contests. It only denies the merchant and the public of the benefits and responsibilities of federal registration. The imposition of new restrictions on registration, based on a narrowing interpretation of the statute, is inimical to the public purposes of the Lanham Act. I can not join the majority in its reasoning or conclusion.