[E-trademarks] Request from INTA Precedential Decisions Task Force

[Carl Oppedahl]

Oops, sorry, I gave the wrong link.  I gave the PTAB link.  Here is the 
TTAB link for TTAB decision nomination 
<https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/trademark-trial-and-appeal-board/ttab-decision-nomination>.

On 1/27/2025 6:37 PM, Carl Oppedahl via E-trademarks wrote:
>
> 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’s Trademark Trial and Appeal 
> Board each year.
>
> Members might or might not be familiar with the web page Nomination 
> for Designation or De-Designation of PTAB Decisions 
> <https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/ptab-decision-nomination>.  This 
> submission form allows individuals to nominate any routine decision of 
> the Board for designation as precedential or informative.
>
> 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.
>
> 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 the decision has been designated non-precedential.
>
> 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 that is designated non-precedential, this might somehow count as 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>
>
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