The
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (
TTAB) is a body within the
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) responsible for hearing and deciding certain kinds of cases involving
trademarks. These include appeals from decisions by USPTO Examiners denying registration of marks, and
opposition proceedings filed against trademark applications. TTAB panels hear hundreds of claims each year asserting that trademarks should not be registered because they are generic, disparaging, or confusingly similar to existing marks. Such challenges to registration are initially considered by trademark examining attorneys, whose judgment may be appealed to the TTAB. Decisions of the TTAB may, in turn, be appealed to a
United States district court, or the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.