This year the Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit, and the Circuit Courts penned a number of
opinions impacting trademark law. Here are some key takeaways from
the past year:
1. The Federal Circuit clarified the standards for genericness
and acquired distinctiveness in a 15-year battle between Coca-Cola
Co. and Royal Crown Co.
In Royal Crown Co. v. Coca-Cola Co., the Federal
Circuit vacated and remanded TTAB's decision that upheld
Coca-Cola's trademark on ZERO. Royal Crown Co. v. Coca-Cola
Co., 892 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2018). The TTAB made two fatal
errors: first, it did not consider whether ZERO could be generic
among the sub-category of diet sodas, failing to assess
whether consumers understood ZERO when used in combination with a
beverage mark to refer to a diet soda. Second, the TTAB did not
consider whether ZERO was highly descriptive of sodas. Since highly
descriptive marks require more evidence of secondary meaning,
