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<p>Oops, sorry, I gave the wrong link. I gave the PTAB link. Here
is the TTAB link for <a
href="https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/trademark-trial-and-appeal-board/ttab-decision-nomination">TTAB
decision nomination</a>.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/27/2025 6:37 PM, Carl Oppedahl via
E-trademarks wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:94c9e0fc-9500-42bb-b897-f5266a3d2b24@oppedahl.com">
<p>Hello listserv members. I received an inquiry just now from
Jason Elster, who is a new member of the e-trademarks listserv.
He is a member of INTA's Precedential Decisions Task Force.
This task force has a goal of substantially increasing the
number of precedential decisions issued by the Trademark
Office\u2019s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board each year.</p>
<p>Members might or might not be familiar with the web page <a
href="https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/ptab-decision-nomination"
moz-do-not-send="true">Nomination for Designation or
De-Designation of PTAB Decisions</a>. This submission form
allows individuals to nominate any routine decision of the Board
for designation as precedential or informative.</p>
<p>Jason asked if I thought it would be appropriate for him to
post to the listserv about this. And I have encouraged him to
do so. I imagine that presently he will post something about
this topic.<br>
</p>
<p>My own personal view is that it would be helpful if more PTAB
decisions could be precedential. There have been quite a few
times over the years when I would happen upon some decision and
would wish that I could have cited it in some document, and then
I would see that the decision has been designated
non-precedential. <br>
</p>
<p>I guess probably nobody likes to come out and say it, but I
think that there is a rarely-said-out-loud feeling with some
trademark practitioners that one worries that when a panel
issues a decision that is designated non-precedential, this
might somehow count as license or permission for the author of
the decision to ... not flesh out the reasoning quite as fully
or cogently. And that if more panels were to crank out more
decisions with the idea and expectation that they would be
precedential, the result would be a larger number of
higher-quality decisions that would work to everybody's benefit.</p>
<p>Having said all of this, I certainly do recognize that some
fraction of cases necessarily get decided based purely on a
narrow set of facts, where there is just no reason to think that
any later case would have its own set of facts that would track
so closely as to benefit from the earlier case being
precedential. To say this another way, when a case is tied to
some very narrow set of facts, I am prepared to cut some slack
for the author of the decision. I am prepared to accept the
decision being a document that does not get the benefit of the
fine-tuning that would go into a precedential decision.</p>
<p>What I do not mean to do here is to speak for Jason. I am sure
he has his own goals in terms of inviting practitioners to make
use of the form and how to describe why he thinks it would be a
good idea.</p>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
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