Fraud in Incontestability Status Not Grounds to Cancel Trademark

Providing a false declaration to the US Patent and Trademark Office in an effort to obtain incontestability status isn’t grounds for cancellation of a trademark, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Section 14 of the Lanham Act, which allows the cancellation of a trademark when the “registration was obtained fraudulently,” doesn’t authorize cancellation when the incontestability status of the mark is obtained fraudulently, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in an opinion by Judge Leonard P. Stark.

“The Board has long believed it has such power,” Stark said. “We conclude, however, that Section 14 does not ...