Coca-Cola ‘Thums Up’ Trademark Win Undone by Federal Circuit (1)

Coca-Cola Co. saw its trademark tribunal win tossed by a Federal Circuit panel, which ruled that the board was wrong in canceling a wholesale distributor’s US marks because of Coke’s sales abroad.

Coke failed to show that it had lost sales or had any reputational injury in the US from Meenaxi Enterprise Inc.'s US sales of “Thums Up” and “Limca” beverages, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a precedential opinion Wednesday.

The ruling undoes Coke’s win at the Trademark Trial Appeal Board, which had canceled Meenaxi’s marks, finding that they misrepresented their source, meaning consumers ...