A Texas pawn shop operator had prior common law rights for similar marks and overlapping pawn services, making Dollar Financial’s MONEY MART marks likely to cause confusion.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) decision partially canceling two of Dollar Financial Group, Inc.’s (DFG) registered trademarks covering pawn brokerage and pawn shop services. The appellate court upheld TTAB’s findings that Brittex Financial, Inc. had prior common law rights in its MONEY MART PAWN and MONEY MART PAWN JEWELRY marks for pawn services and that Dollar Financial could not rely on the zone of natural expansion doctrine to establish priority. The court also affirmed TTAB’s determination that the likelihood of confusion factors under In re E.I. DuPont DeNemours Co., 476 F.2d 1357 (C.C.P.A. 1973), weighed in favor of a likelihood of confusion (Dollar Financial Group, Inc. v. Brittex Financial, Inc., No. 23-1375 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 19, 2025)).
Case date: 19 March 2025
Case number: No. 23-1375
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law
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