Decisions · Opposition No. 91185755
Royal Crown Company, Inc. and Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. v. The Coca-Cola Company
Opposition No. 91185755 · Decided 2019-05-03 · Opposition
What happened
In this consolidated proceeding the Board granted The Coca-Cola Company’s unconsented motion to amend its three opposed applications — COKE ZERO ENERGY, COKE ZERO BOLD, and VANILLA COKE ZERO — to disclaim the word ZERO, the only relief Royal Crown and Dr Pepper/Seven Up had requested, dismissed Coca-Cola’s older superseded motions to amend the goods descriptions as moot, and dismissed the opposition without deciding whether ‘zero’ is generic or merely descriptive.
The marks
Applicant
COKE ZERO ENERGY;COKE ZERO BOLD;VANILLA COKE ZERO
Not stated in this procedural order (the order identifies the three opposed applications only by serial number and mark)
Why this decision is significant
Redesignated as a TTAB precedent on March 30, 2021, this order establishes that the Board may grant an applicant’s unconsented Rule 2.133(a) motion to amend where the amendment (here, a ZERO disclaimer) supplies the only relief sought in the notice of opposition, ending the proceeding without a merits decision. It is the procedural coda to the long-running ZERO genericness litigation, but contains no substantive trademark analysis.
Research significance is Trademark Valet's editorial rating of how useful a decision is to practitioners. It is not a statement of precedential weight — that is the separate Precedential field, which comes from the Board.
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Royal Crown Company, Inc. and Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. v. The Coca-Cola Company
After the Federal Circuit sent the case back, the Board let The Coca-Cola Company amend its COCA-COLA ZERO application (Serial No. 78580598) to disclaim any exclusive right in the word ZERO…
Opposition No. 91178927 · 2019-05-03 · COCA-COLA ZERO
The original record
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