{"id":49,"date":"2015-07-20T11:16:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T15:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=49"},"modified":"2015-07-22T15:29:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T19:29:45","slug":"peace-love-and-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"Peace, Love, and Lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Juice Generation, Inc. v, GS Enterprises<\/em>, LLC, [2014-1853] (July 20, 2015), the Federal Circuit vacated a TTAB decision sustaining GS Enterprises’ opposition to Juice Generation’s application to register PEACE LOVE AND JUICE based upon their PEACE & LOVE marks for restaurant services, including:<\/p>\n

\"PEACE_LOVE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewing the Board’s likelihood of confusion determination de novo<\/em>, the Federal Circuit noted that although Juice Generation introduced evidence of a fair number of third-party uses of marks containing \u201cpeace\u201d and \u201clove\u201d followed by a third, product-identifying term, <\/span>the Board discounted the evidence <\/span>because there were no \u201cspecifics regarding the extent of sales or promotional efforts surrounding the third-party marks and, thus, what impact, if any, these uses have made in the minds of the purchasing public.\u201d\u00a0 The Federal Circuit found that the\u00a0Board\u2019s treatment of the evidence of third-party marks did not adequately account for the apparent force of that evidence.\u00a0 While the\u00a0specifics as to the extent and impact of use not have been proven, the Federal Circuit found the evidence “powerful on its face”. The Federal Circuit said that the Board overlooked the fact that regardless of the extend of use, extensive evidence of third-party use <\/span>and registrations <\/span><\/i>indicates that the phrase PEACE & LOVE carries a suggestive or descriptive connotation in the food service industry, and is weak for that reason.<\/p>\n

\"Peace_Love_JUICE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit also found that the Board improperly failed to consider the marks as a whole when it declared that \u201cPEACE LOVE\u201d is the \u201cdominant\u201d portion of applicant’s marks, and compared only that portion\u00a0to GS\u2019s \u201cPEACE & LOVE\u201d marks.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit said that this analysis did not\u00a0display any consideration of how the three word phrase in Juice Generation\u2019s mark might\u00a0convey a distinct meaning\u2014including by having different connotations in consumers\u2019 minds\u2014from the two-word phrase.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit also observed that it was improper to give no significance to the disclaimed term JUICE because the consuming public encountering the mark would be unaware of the disclaimer.<\/p>\n

The Board’s decision does not seem out of line with their past practice; perhaps the Federal Circuit is trying to inject more real world considerations into their process because after In B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Industries, Inc<\/em>.\u00a0 the Board’s decisions may have greater impact on the real world.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Juice Generation, Inc. v, GS Enterprises, LLC, [2014-1853] (July 20, 2015), the Federal Circuit vacated a TTAB decision sustaining GS Enterprises’ opposition to Juice Generation’s application to register PEACE LOVE AND JUICE based upon their PEACE & LOVE marks … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}