Last week, Novus International, Inc., an animal health and nutrition company, filed an opposition to PowerPlant Foods Inc.’s application to register the trademark “NOVUS,” for use with energy shakes and bars it makes and offers for sale. The filing, submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, contends that PowerPlant’s proposed mark “is identical in sight, sound, connotation, and overall commercial impression” to Novus’s registered trademarks and will cause the company harm.
The opposition stated that Novus is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Missouri, while PowerPlant is an Oregon-based and incorporated business. Novus allegedly manufactures “a wide range of nutritional products,” among other goods and services. Procedurally, PowerPlant filed its intent-to-use trademark application last September. The application was published for opposition on Aug. 11, making the present filing timely, according to Novus.
Novus argued that since about 1991, it “adopted and has continuously used the NOVUS trademark on packaging for animal feed nutritional additive and supplements, as well as marketing and other informational material, in various types of media, related to its counselling, analysis, and research in the fields of animal nutrition and production and related services.” Novus averred that it will suffer harm if PowerPlant’s NOVUS mark registration is accepted because it “so resembles” Novus’s extant marks.
Furthermore, Novus asserted that if the proposed mark is used in connection with PowerPlant’s intended products, nutritional supplement energy bars, powdered drink mixes, and shakes, it “is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive” consumers. It argued that PowerPlant has neither an existing right to the proposed mark nor a right that predates its own registered trademarks. The filing requested that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board sustain its opposition and refuse to register PowerPlant’s application.
Novus is represented by Polsinelli P.C.
