Launching Site or Other Advertising Alone is Not Service Mark ‘Use’
For the first time, the Federal Circuit directly addressed whether the advertising or offering of a service, without the actual provision of the service, constitutes use in commerce for a service mark, reports McCarter & English in a paper written by Jonathan Short and Carissa L. Rodrigue.
The case is Couture v. Playdom, Inc., No. 2014-1480 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 2, 2015).
“In affirming the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) cancellation of the service mark PLAYDOM, the court held that the mark was void ab initio because the associated services were not rendered as of the use-based application’s filing date even though the mark owner had used the mark to advertise the services by launching a website, and that such advertising alone does not constitute use in commerce,” the report says.
