Answer
What happens in an opposition or cancellation?
Lawyers call this: inter partes proceedings
Short answer
Someone is fighting your trademark, and it is a real case — pleadings, discovery, evidence and briefs — decided by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. An opposition attacks an application before it registers. A cancellation attacks a registration that already issued.
What is at stake is the registration, and only the registration. The Board cannot award money and cannot order anyone to stop selling. That is a court’s job.
What changes the answer
- Whether it is an opposition or a cancellation
- An opposition must be filed within thirty days after the mark is published for opposition, or within a validly obtained extension of that time. A cancellation can come years later — but the grounds available narrow once the registration is more than five years old, and some grounds, including non-use under Section 14(6), carry their own timing rules.
- What grounds they pleaded
- Likelihood of confusion is the common one. Descriptiveness, genericness, failure to function, non-use and fraud are also available, though which of them can be raised against a registration depends on how old it is. Each needs its own proof.
- Whether they are entitled to bring the claim
- The challenger must show a real interest within the statute and plead a legally available ground. A prior trademark right matters for some claims, but not every opposition or cancellation depends on one. Cases do get thrown out at the pleading stage.
- How much the registration is worth to you
- These proceedings run on litigation timelines and litigation budgets. Sometimes the right answer is to narrow the goods, negotiate, or let it go.
The rule
Oppositions and cancellations are brought under Sections 13 and 14 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1063 and 1064, and are decided by the Board under the Trademark Rules of Practice, which borrow much of their machinery from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Section 14 allows a broad set of cancellation grounds while the registration is less than five years old. After that only the grounds Section 14 preserves remain available — genericness, functionality, abandonment, fraud and certain others — and particular grounds carry their own timing rules.
The Board’s authority is limited to registrability. It decides whether a mark may register or stay registered. It does not decide infringement, does not award damages and does not issue injunctions — a point worth being clear about early, because the two fights are often confused and are sometimes running at the same time in different forums.
What the Board has done
Three decisions in this library, rewritten in plain English from the Board’s opinion.
Instagram’s opposition to INSTAGOODS and Instagoods’ counter-opposition to INSTA were combined for shared handling. The rulings recorded here are procedural — a reminder that oppositions run in both directions between the same parties, and that most of the docket is procedure. Both proceedings have since terminated, with the oppositions dismissed with prejudice in April 2024.
The Major League Baseball Players Association opposed a t-shirt seller’s HERE COMES THE JUDGE and ALL RISE marks, and the Board sustained the oppositions. That result was affirmed on appeal in January 2026.
A cancellation petition was denied without prejudice because the petitioner had not adequately pleaded its entitlement to bring the case at all. The proceeding then terminated; nobody repleaded.
The Board combined Instagram’s challenge to the INSTAGOODS application with Instagoods' counter-challenge involving INSTA, and let Instagram question two Australian…
Read the plain summary →Instagram, LLC v. Instagoods Pty Ltd · 2023No later change on its docketThe Board sustained the MLBPA’s opposition and refused registration of Michael Chisena’s HERE COMES THE JUDGE mark for t-shirts and other clothing, finding that MLBPA…
Read the plain summary →Major League Baseball Players Association v. Michael P. Chisena · 2023No later change on its docketPetition dismissed with leave to repleadThe Board granted American Flash’s motion to dismiss because Ahal Al-Sara did not adequately plead its entitlement to bring the case or a legally sufficient fraud claim, but…
Read the plain summary →Ahal Al-Sara Group for Trading v. American Flash, Inc. · 2023No later change on its docketGo deeper
The twenty inter partes decisions sit alongside the other 158 in the decision library, and reading them is the fastest way to see what these proceedings actually look like.
What to do next
Diary the deadline the moment the papers arrive. Answer dates in these proceedings are short and a default judgment is a real outcome.
Then read what they pleaded, ground by ground. An opposition that leads with likelihood of confusion and adds three thin grounds behind it is a different problem from one built on a genuine prior right, and the answer to each is different.
A U.S. business may represent itself before the Board, but most should not. These are litigated cases, and procedural missteps, including default, can decide them.
If a notice of opposition or a petition to cancel names you, Valet Law, PLLC can read it and tell you what your answer has to cover and when it is due.
Attorney review is provided by Valet Law, PLLC, a law firm separate from Trademark Valet, LLC. Keep confidential facts out of public tools. Your first message to Valet Law should identify the parties and the general issue only. Wait until Valet Law confirms it can discuss the matter before sending confidential details.
Who checked this
Reviewed and approved by Brandon Leavitt on 2026-10-02.
General information about how trademark law works. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not make anyone your lawyer.