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Updating a trademark can be risky if someone else gets in ahead of you. Inn at St. Johns, LLC registered its name “5ive Restaurant” in logo form. So far so good. Eleven years later, St. Johns decided to update its trademark to 5ive Steakhouse in logo form. But St. Johns got derailed. Three years after St. Johns registered its first trademark, OTG Management Inc. registered 5Steak. (All 3 mark drawings appear to the left). The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) refused registration of St. Johns’ 5ive Steakhouse due to a likelihood of confusion with the OTG’s 5Steak registration. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the refusal.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. What, if anything, could St. Johns have done to avoid this outcome? First, St. Johns could have monitored the USPTO to see if any applications were being filed to register similar trademarks and then oppose the registrations. There are services that will monitor the records for you. Some can be costly; others not so much. Second, St. Johns could have set up an alert on a search engine to let it know if anyone is using a similar mark on a common law basis. This could have given St. Johns a heads up about 5Steak in time to do something about it. Third, before applying to register the updated trademark, St. Johns could have conducted due diligence, discovered 5Steak and perhaps, worked something out with them.