Western District Analyzes Trademark Issues: Use in Commerce; Abandonment; and Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents

By: Joe Carnicella, an intellectual property attorney with Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.

On September 13, 2013, Judge Cercone of the Western District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in Taza Systems, LLC v. Taza 21 Co., LLC, et al., No. 2:11-cv-073, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130974 (W.D. Pa. September 13, 2013), covering various fundamental trademark topics.

Relevant Facts

Taza Systems is the owner of three service mark registrations on the Principal Register of the USPTO: (1) the word mark TAZA; (2) the word mark TAZA A LEBANESE GRILL; and (3) the design mark TAZA A LEBANESE GRILL.  These marks cover restaurant and bar services in International Class 43.  Taza Systems operates two restaurants in Woodmere, Ohio and Cleveland, Ohio.  In July 2008, Taza 21 opened a restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under the names TAZA21, TAZA21 FRESH, and TAZA21 FRESH SHAWARMA CAFE.

Use in Commerce

Taza 21 asserted that Taza Systems’ registered marks were invalid and subject to cancellation because Taza Systems did not provide services in interstate commerce as required to justify registration under the Lanham Act.

According to the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq., a mark is used “in commerce” on services when it is used or displayed in the sale or advertising of services and the services are rendered in commerce.  Commerce is defined to mean “all commerce which may lawfully be regulated by Congress.”  Because Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause extends even to purely intrastate activity if that activity substantially affects interstate commerce, the Lanham Act’s authority includes the same.  The court discussed the term “in commerce” as it applies to restaurants located in a single state.  Some factors that have been deemed to satisfy the interstate commerce requirement include location near interstate highways, servicing customers from other states, advertisements in out-of-state publications and purchasing ingredients from out-of-state vendors.

The court determined that Taza 21 would have the burden of proving at trial that Taza Systems did not use the registered service marks “in commerce”, and in doing so, Taza 21 would have to produce evidence to contradict and overcome the rebuttable presumption of validity and ownership of the marks afforded to Taza Systems because it holds registration certificates for all three service marks.  The court concluded that Taza 21 failed to adduce sufficient evidence that could establish at trial that the service marks are not used in commerce.

Abandonment

Taza 21 asserted that Taza Systems’ marks were invalid and subject to cancellation because Taza Systems failed to police third-party uses of confusingly similar marks.

Under 15 U.S.C. § 1127, if a trademark or service mark becomes generic, or otherwise loses its significance as an indicator of source due to the conduct of the owner, it can be deemed legally abandoned.  A mark can also be deemed legally abandoned if the owner discontinues use, with an intent not to resume it.  However, a party arguing for abandonment has a high burden of proof because abandonment, being in the nature of a forfeiture, must be strictly proved.  A “failure to police” a mark is one type of owner conduct that is commonly assumed to result in abandonment.  However, in order to prove this type of abandonment, the challenger must establish that the presence of third-party users in the marketplace resulted in what is described as a “loss of trade significance,” which is another way of saying that a mark is no longer distinctive because it fails to identify and distinguish the services of one person from the services of others and to indicate the source of the services.  As a reminder, the distinctiveness of a mark is evaluated by four categories: (1) arbitrary or fanciful; (2) suggestive; (3) descriptive; and (4) generic.  The first two categories are inherently distinctive and are afforded protection under the Lanham Act automatically; the third type of mark must acquire distinctiveness as an identifier of the source of goods or services before it can be eligible for protection; the fourth category of marks is never protected as a mark.

The court analyzed Taza 21’s evidence, which consisted of only a list compiled by counsel of 51 businesses that included TAZA in their name and an excerpt from a Thomson CompuMark Trademark Research Report issued to Taza Systems’ attorney seven years prior, and determined that such evidence did nothing to establish that Taza Systems’ marks lost their significance as an indicator of the source of its restaurant and bar services.  According to the court, the evidence did nothing more than establish that, at one point in time, various businesses across the United States may have used the word TAZA in their names and that those businesses ranged from coffee shops and restaurants to blown glass manufacturers and residential building contractors.  Moreover, the court applied the Dawn Donut Rule (see Dawn Donut Comp. v. Hart’s Food Stores, Inc., 267 F.2d 358 (2d Cir. 1959)) and concluded that, because these third parties use their marks in geographically “separate trading areas” and there was no evidence that Taza Systems had imminent plans to expand into the third-party user’s territory, no public confusion was likely.  The court ruled that Taza 21 failed to submit evidence sufficient to establish that the moniker TAZA had become generically descriptive of restaurant services as a result of Taza Systems’ failure to police the market.

Descriptiveness – Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents

Taza 21 asserted that Taza Systems’ marks were invalid and subject to cancellation because the marks were merely descriptive upon application of the doctrine of foreign equivalents.

Registration of a mark on the Principal Register constitutes prima facie evidence of the validity of a trademark and of the owner’s exclusive right to use it in commerce.  However, if a challenger comes forward with evidence to establish that the mark was erroneously registered, the registration can be cancelled or otherwise invalidated.  Under the doctrine of foreign equivalents, foreign words from common languages are translated into English to determine whether they are generic or descriptive.  However, this doctrine applies only if the ordinary American purchaser would stop and translate the mark into English.  When it it unlikely that an American buyer would translate the foreign mark, either because of unfamiliarity with the foreign word or association of the word with its foreign language through decor, the doctrine does not apply.

During prosecution of its marks, Taza Systems disclosed that the word “taza” translates from the Lebanese dialect of Arabic to English as “fresh,” and each of the registration certificates explicitly reflects this translation.  Taza 21 submitted as evidence printouts from various on-line dictionaries reflecting that “taza” translated from Hindi to English as “fresh” and “green,” that “taze” translated from Turkish to English as “fresh” and “youthful,” and “taza” translated from Persian to English as “fresh, young, new.”

The court analyzed this limited evidence and determined that Taza 21 failed to adduce any evidence that would allow a reasonable juror to overcome the presumption of validity afforded to Taza Systems by its federal registrations and to conclude that the ordinary American purchaser would deem the mark TAZA to be descriptive of “restaurant and bar services.”  The court opined that, because the mark TAZA appeared in the context of a restaurant that serves Lebanese food, plays Lebanese music and is decorated with Lebanese decor, a reasonable juror could find that the ordinary American purchaser would not be prompted to translate the mark TAZA, thereby making the doctrine of foreign equivalents inapplicable.  Moreover, even assuming that the doctrine of foreign equivalents might apply, the court determined that Taza 21 failed to produce evidence that the doctrine would invalidate the marks.  In making this decision, the court considered certain statistics, which demonstrated that only a very low percentage of the U.S. population speaks Arabic, and concluded that the ordinary American purchaser would not stop and translate the term TAZA into English.  The court also considered the pages from the various dictionaries submitted by Taza 21 and determined that such evidence would not invoke the doctrine because there are multiple translations and varying foreign spellings and pronunciations.  Finally, assuming arguendo that Taza 21 could establish that the ordinary American purchase would stop and translate “taza,” the court held that no reasonable juror could conclude that “fresh” is a word used to describe restaurant and bar services.  Although “fresh” could be suggestive of the type of products or ingredients used at a particular restaurant, as opposed to another, suggestive marks are inherently distinctive and entitled to trademark protection.  The court held that the Taza Systems’ registrations for “fresh” do not remove an inevitably descriptive or generic word for restaurant or bar services in a foreign language from public use in the United States.