The Federal Circuit, in DuoProSS Meditech Corp. v. Inviro Medical Devices Ltd., recently ruled that a trademark’s validity must be assessed by taking into account the impression of the mark as a whole.

In this case, Inviro petitioned to cancel a Duopross application for a design mark used with a safety syringe. Duopross counterclaimed for cancellation of several Inviro trademark registrations. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board canceled three Inviro registrations, but found that registrations for “SNAP!” and “SNAP SIMPLY SAFER” were not merely descriptive of the underlying snap-off safety syringes.

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