New York Trademark Attorney Blog
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) issued a decision two days ago that reaffirmed to trademark practitioners that the doctrine of foreign equivalents must be seriously considered when conducting trademark clearances and rendering trademark clearance opinions to clients. See In re S Squared Ventures, LLC, Serial No. 86813357 (August 16, 2017) [not precedential]. In this recent case, S Squared Ventures, LLC (“Applicant”) filed to register the mark UHAI in standard characters for hair products in international class 3. Among the products identified in the application were shampoo, conditioner, oil, foam, gel, etc. The Examining Attorney refused the application citing a likelihood of confusion with the registered mark for LIFE FOR HAIR (stylized) for hair care products.
Applicant appealed the refusal and requested reconsideration. The request for reconsideration was denied and the appeal proceeded. Marks are compared for sight, sound, meaning and commercial impression. It is well settled law that any one of these factors could be enough to find a likelihood of confusion. The interesting aspect of this case is that on their face, the two marks do not appear to be similar in appearance and sound. If you were not familiar with the doctrine of foreign equivalents, you could have been surprised by the refusal.
Applicant’s mark UHAI is a term in Swahili that directly translates into English and it means “Life”. Applicant did not deny that the term had a direct translation. Under the principle of foreign equivalents a trademark that has a meaning in a foreign language and a equivalent meaning or direct translation in English can be found to be confusingly similar. See our web page entitled, The Trademark Doctrine Of Foreign Equivalents for the fundamental elements that comprise this doctrine.