When Christiane E, LLC filed a Petition to Cancel International Expeditions, Inc.’s registration on the ground of abandonment, International Expedition filed a voluntary surrender of the registration without Petitioner’s consent, pursuant to Trademark Rule 2.134(a). Several months, later, however, it apparently discovered that Christiane E was formed by a founder of a predecessor company to International Expedition and had hired at least one of International Expedition’s employees, and so sought to withdraw its voluntary surrender. An issue of first impression, the Board rejected the withdrawal and looked to In re Glaxo Group Ltd., which involved the attempted withdrawal of an express abandonment during ex parte examination. Drawing on the same reasoning, the Board found that International Expedition had voluntarily relinquished a right, which became part of public record for both the public and PTO employees, who may rely on that record. Further, the voluntary surrender directly implicated the rights of Christiane E, and so the Board applied the strict standard of Glaxo of requiring an extraordinary circumstance for allowing such a withdrawal or surrender to be reversed. The Board found International Expedition’s reasoning for the attempted withdrawal of the voluntary surrender to be irrelevant and unsupported by any evidence.

The case is precedential. See Christiane E., LLC v. International Expeditions, Inc., Cancellation No. 92055645.

Source: http://thettablog.blogspot.com/

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