IP UPDATE
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IP UPDATE
Exploring the latest in intellectual property law
Results for "Trademark appeal"
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Show Your Work: PTO Director’s Procedure for Issuing Instructions Is Reviewable

by | Mar 23, 2023 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) that the substance of the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) Director’s instructions is unreviewable but reversed the finding that the cloak of unreviewability extended to the procedure used in issuing the instructions. Apple v. Vidal, Case No. 22-1249 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 13, 2023) (Lourie, Taranto, Stoll, JJ.)

The creation of the inter partes review (IPR) program opened new avenues for reviewing the validity of patents following issuance. Since the program’s inception, Congress has recognized that there is a possibility of parallel proceedings at the Patent Trial & Appeal Board and in the district court, that such proceedings could result in conflicting decisions and reduced efficiency in the system. However, Congress left it to the discretion of the two branches to work out such situations among themselves.

As one lever to overcome these issues, Congress provided the Director with unreviewable discretion in deciding whether to institute an IPR. Recently, the Director attempted to leverage this power to increase efficiencies and reduce gamesmanship by instructing the Board on what to consider when instituting an IPR.

Apple and four other companies challenged these instructions in the district court. Apple argued that the Director’s instructions violated the APA by being contrary to the IPR provisions, arbitrary and capricious, and issued without the notice-and-comment rulemaking required under the APA.

Following a motion to dismiss, the district court concluded that Apple’s challenges were directed at the Director’s actions, making them unreviewable by the court. Apple appealed.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit considered all three of Apple’s APA challenges to the instructions, along with whether Apple had standing to bring the suit. The Court agreed with the district court that the question of whether an instruction violates the APA by being contrary to the IPR provisions or by being arbitrary and capricious is directed to the substance of the Director’s action and is not reviewable: “§ 314(a) invests the Director with discretion on the question whether to institute review . . . : The determination by the Director whether to institute an inter partes review . . . shall be final and nonappealable.” As the Federal Circuit noted, this conclusion rests on the well-supported need for the PTO Director to give guidance to delegatees on how to make institution determinations.

The Federal Circuit disagreed that the announcement procedure the Director used for issuing the instructions to the Board was unreviewable, however. As the Court noted, the procedure employed by an agency to announce guidelines is “quite apart” from the substance of those guidelines. Given this distinction, the Court concluded that the procedure the Director used to announce the instructions was reviewable: “The government here has not shown that anything in § 314(d) or elsewhere in the IPR statute supplies clear and convincing evidence that there was to be no judicial review of the choice of announcement procedure, a matter for which generally applicable standards exist.”

The [...]

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The Fondues and Don’ts of Certification Marks

by | Mar 16, 2023 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a summary judgment grant in favor of the opposers of a certification mark application for the trademark GRUYERE to designate cheese that originates in the Gruyère region of Switzerland and France. The Court found that the term “gruyere” is generic because consumers of cheese understand the term to refer to a category of cheese that can come “from anywhere.” Interprofession du Gruyere; Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Gruyere. v. U.S. Dairy Export Council; Atalanta Corporation; Intercibus, Inc., Case No. 22-1041 (4th Cir. March 3, 2023) (Gregory, Thacker, Rushing, JJ.)

In the United States, a certification mark is a type of trademark used to show consumers that particular goods or services, or their providers, have met certain standards. Unlike a typical trademark, a certification mark is not used by the owner of the mark (the certifier) but instead controls how others use the mark.

In an approach similar to the preceding certifiers of ROQUEFORT® and REGGIANO®, the Swiss Consortium Interprofession du Gruyère (IDG) and French consortium Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Gruyère believed that the term “gruyere” should only be used to label cheese produced in the Gruyère region of Switzerland and France. In 2010, IDG applied to the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) to register LE GRUYERE as a certification mark but was refused registration on grounds that “gruyere is a generic designation for cheese.” In 2013, the PTO granted IDG a certification mark registration for LE GRUYERE in a specific design form, paired with the word “Switzerland,” the letters “AOC” and a stylized Swiss cross. IDG undertook efforts to enforce the mark and sent letters to several US cheese retailers and manufacturers demanding that they cease labeling their non-Swiss cheeses as gruyere.

In 2015, IDG again attempted to register the term GRUYERE on its own as a certification mark. The U.S. Dairy Export Council, Atalanta Corporation and Intercibus melted together to throw a wedge in the process, opposing the application for the mark on grounds that “gruyere” was generic for cheese and, therefore, ineligible for protection as a certification mark. The Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (Board) found that the term “gruyere” was generic because cheese consumers understand it to be a designation for “a category within the genus of cheese that can come from anywhere.” IDG filed a complaint in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia challenging the Board’s decision. Ultimately, the district court granted the opposers’ motion, finding that the factual record demonstrated that “gruyere” refers to a generic type of cheese without reference to the geographic region where the cheese is produced. IDG appealed.

The Fourth Circuit began by explaining that certification marks, like typical trademarks, include a bar on the registration of terms that are generic for the applied-for product or service category. The Court framed the genericness inquiry as whether “members of the relevant public primarily use or understand the term sought to be protected to refer to the genus of goods . [...]

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PTO Adds Green Energy Category to Patents for Humanity Program

by | Mar 16, 2023 |

On March 6, 2023, the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) introduced a new green energy category to its Patents for Humanity Program. This new award category provides business incentives for patent applicants, holders and licensees whose inventions address the challenges of climate change through green energy innovations, including wind, solar, hydrogen, hydropower, geothermal and biofuels technologies. The green energy category joins five other categories of inventions in the Patents for Humanity Program: medicine, nutrition, sanitation, household energy and living standards.

The Patents for Humanity green energy category joins other recent PTO initiatives designed to address climate change, including a joint work-sharing program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, expedited examination procedures under the Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program, and a partnership with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s WIPO GREEN program.

The Patents for Humanity Award is the top award for applicants best representing the Patents for Humanity principles. Award recipients receive public recognition at an awards ceremony sponsored by the PTO. They also receive a certificate to accelerate any of the following matters before the PTO: a patent application, an ex parte reexam or an ex parte appeal to the Patent Trial & Appeal Board. Winners may transfer their acceleration certificates to third parties.

The PTO is now accepting applications for the Patents for Humanity green energy category. For more information about how to apply, visit Patents for Humanity: Green Energy. The deadline for submitting applications is June 1, 2023.



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Claim Duality: Multiple Dependent Claims Can Be Both Patentable and Unpatentable

by | Mar 9, 2023 |

Addressing, for the first time, the issue of patentability of multiple dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, fifth paragraph, the Director of the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) granted rehearing and modified the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (Board) Final Written Decision after finding that the patentability of a multiple dependent claim should be considered separately as to each of the claims from which it depends. Nested Bean, Inc. v. Big Beings US Pty. Ltd. et al., IPR2020-01234 (PTO Feb. 24, 2023) (Vidal, Dir.) (precedential).

Nested filed a petition for inter partes review challenging claims 1 through 18 of a patent owned by Big Beings. Claims 1 and 2 were independent, and claims 3 to 16 were multiple dependent claims, which depended directly from either claim 1 or 2. The Board granted institution and ultimately issued a Final Written Decision finding that Nested did not establish that claims 1, 17 and 18 were unpatentable, but that Nested had established that claims 2 through 16 were unpatentable.

Big Beings filed a Request for Director review, noting that each of claims 3 to 16 were multiple dependent claims that depended from both claims 1 and 2. Big Beings argued that because the Board found that Nested failed to show that claim 1 was unpatentable, the Board should have also found that Nested failed to show that claims 3 through 16, as depending from claim 1, were unpatentable. The Director granted review.

35 U.S.C. § 112, fifth paragraph, states, in relevant part, “[a] multiple dependent claim shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the particular claim in relation to which it is being considered.” Big Beings argued that the statute requires the Board to separately consider the patentability of alternative dependencies of a multiple dependent claim. Nested responded by arguing that the statute should be read so that if any version of a multiple dependent claim is found unpatentable over the prior art, then all versions of the claim should be found unpatentable.

The Director found that this was an issue of first impression. Relying on 37 C.F.R. § 1.75(c) and 35 U.S.C. § 282, the Director concluded that “a multiple dependent claim is the equivalent of several single dependent claims. Thus, in the same way that the unpatentability of multiple single dependent claims would each rise or fall separately, so too should the dependent claims covered by a multiple dependent claim.” The Director also noted that the Federal Circuit in Dow Chemical and Dayco Products explained that “not addressing claim validity on an individual basis is an error and contravenes 35 U.S.C. 282[.]” The PTO Director concluded, quoting the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP), that “a multiple dependent claim must be considered in the same manner as a plurality of single dependent claims.”



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Compelling Clarity: PTO Director Explains Compelling Merits Test

by | Mar 9, 2023 |

US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) Director Katherine K. Vidal issued a precedential opinion clarifying the standard under which the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) can institute on an inter partes review (IPR) petition despite the Fintiv factors militating toward denial. CommScope Techs. LLC v. Dali Wireless, Inc., IPR2022-01242 (PTO Feb. 27, 2023) (Vidal, Dir.) (precedential).

This opinion follows the Director’s Interim Procedure for Discretionary Denials memorandum (Guidance Memo) and her opinion in OpenSky Indus. v. VLSI Tech. In the guidance memo, the Director explained that when there is “compelling evidence of unpatentability,” the Board may decline to exercise its discretion to deny IPR institution.

In this case, Dali Wireless sued CommScope in the district court, alleging infringement of its patent. CommScope filed a petition to institute an IPR proceeding against the asserted patent. The Board granted the petition and instituted an IPR proceeding while the district court litigation was ongoing.

In granting the petition, the Board acknowledged that it would normally perform a Fintiv analysis to determine whether it should deny the petition in light of the parallel district court proceeding. However, considering the Guidance Memo and the “compelling invalidity challenge” presented by the petitioner, the Board skipped the Fintiv analysis and instituted on the petition. The Director instituted sua sponte review.

Recognizing some ambiguity in both OpenSky and the guidance memo, the Director made her decision precedential to clarify:

My Guidance Memo states that “the PTAB will not deny institution based on Fintiv if there is compelling evidence of unpatentability.” Although I now recognize that this instruction could be read to allow for a compelling merits determination as a substitute for a Fintiv analysis, that was not my intent. By that instruction, I intended for PTAB panels to only consider compelling merits if they first determined that Fintiv factors 1–5 favored a discretionary denial . . . . In circumstances where . . . the Board’s analysis of Fintiv factors 1–5 favors denial of institution; the Board shall then assess compelling merits. In doing so, the Board must provide reasoning sufficient to allow the parties to challenge that finding and sufficient to allow for review of the Board’s decision.

A determination of whether the petition presents a compelling merits case for invalidity requires a merits case that meets a higher standard than the “reasonable likelihood” test required by 35 U.S.C. § 314(a).

The Director found that the Board’s decision was deficient in both parts of the analysis. The Board did not perform any analysis of the Fintiv factors but instead went straight to a determination of whether the petition presented a compelling invalidity challenge. In connection with that determination, the Board failed to provide any reasoning that explained why it found the merits case presented in the petition compelling.

Finding that the Board’s reasoning was conclusory, the Director vacated the Board’s decision to institute IPR review and remanded for further proceedings consistent with her decision.

Practice Note: Less [...]

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Little Weight Given to Conclusory Expert Declaration That Repeats IPR Petition Verbatim

by | Mar 2, 2023 |

The US Patent & Trademark Office Director affirmed and designated as precedential a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision denying institution of an inter partes review (IPR) petition where the expert declaration presented conclusory assertions without underlying factual support and repeated verbatim the petitioner’s argument. Xerox Corp. v. Bytemark, Inc., IPR2022-00624 (PTAB Aug. 24, 2022) (Wood, Grossman, Tartal, APJs); Xerox Corp. v. Bytemark, Inc., IPR2022-00624 (Feb 10, 2023) (Vidal, Dir.)

Bytemark owns a patent directed to a method and system for distributing electronic tickets. According to the patent, a user can procure and store an electronic ticket on a device such as a mobile phone, and when the user presents the ticket, the ticket taker can verify the ticket by inspecting a visual object that a human can perceive without a machine scan. In addition to using a validating visual object, the patent teaches data integrity checking to ensure that the ticket data and the software managing that ticket data on the user’s device has not been altered improperly. As to the data integrity concept, the claims of the patent recite a server that is configured to “store in a data record associated with the user account a data value indicating the fraudulent activity” (fraud limitation).

Xerox filed an IPR petition challenging certain claims of the patent as obvious over the Terrell prior art reference in combination with various secondary references. Xerox argued that Terrell disclosed that after fraudulent activity is detected, “the purchaser of the ticket could be blocked from further use of the system or pursued in respect of their potential fraud.” Xerox asserted that a skilled artisan would understand that such blocking would require recording the blocking in a data record associated with that user’s account, and would find it obvious that blocking the account of the purchaser from further use of the system would include storing a data value indicating the fraudulent activity in a data record associated with the user account.

Bytemark responded that Terrell, at most, taught blocking a ticket purchaser from further use of the Terrell system based on potential fraud, but nowhere indicated that this would be achieved by using a data value indicating fraudulent activity, as opposed to some other manner of blocking a user, such as deleting the user’s account or reporting the user for fraud. Bytemark further argued that Xerox’s argument that a skilled artisan would find the fraud limitation obvious was conclusory and an improper attempt to use a skilled artisan’s common knowledge to supply a wholly missing claim limitation without evidentiary support.

The Board agreed with Bytemark, finding that Xerox did not provide sufficient evidence or persuasive reasoning to support either of Xerox’s arguments. The Board explained that Terrell taught blocking the purchaser rather than the account of the purchaser and that it was far from clear that blocking the purchaser would “require” recording the blocking in a record in the purchaser’s account, as opposed to deleting the purchaser’s account altogether. The Board noted that the [...]

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PTO Seeks Comments on Role of Artificial Intelligence in Inventorship

by | Mar 2, 2023 |

The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) published a Request for Comments Regarding Artificial Intelligence and Inventorship seeking input from stakeholders on inventorship issues that may arise as artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies play a greater role in the innovation process. The deadline to submit comments is May 15, 2023.

As background, the PTO held its inaugural AI and Emerging Technologies Partnership meeting, during which panelists discussed AI’s increasing role in innovation, in June 2022. Although there appeared to be consensus that AI cannot “conceive” of inventions, some panelists contended that AI is merely a tool like any other tool used in the inventive process, while others pointed to situations in which AI systems can output patentable inventions or contribute at the level of a joint inventor. While the PTO has been exploring the contours of inventorship law with respect to AI-generated inventions, in August 2022, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its decision in Thaler v. Vidal, finding that inventorship is limited to natural persons. The Court explained, however, that it was not confronted with “the question of whether inventions made by human beings with the assistance of AI are eligible for patent protection.”

Recognizing the uncertainty surrounding the role of AI inventorship in the wake of the Thaler decision, the PTO seeks public comment on several questions, including the following:

1. How is AI, including machine learning, currently being used in the invention creation process?

2. How does the use of an AI system in the invention creation process differ from the use of other technical tools?

3. If an AI system contributes to an invention at the same level as a human who would be considered a joint inventor, is the invention patentable under current patent laws?

4. Do inventions in which an AI system contributed at the same level as a joint inventor raise any significant ownership issues?

5. Is there a need for the PTO to expand its current guidance on inventorship to address situations in which AI significantly contributes to an invention? How should the significance of a contribution be assessed?

6. Should the PTO require applicants to provide an explanation of contributions AI systems made to inventions claimed in patent applications? If so, how should that be implemented, and what level of contributions should be disclosed? Should contributions to inventions made by AI systems be treated differently from contributions made by other (e., non-AI) computer systems?

7. What additional steps, if any, should the PTO take to further incentivize AI-enabled innovation (e.g., innovation in which machine learning or other computational techniques play a significant role in the invention creation process)?

8. What statutory changes, if any, should be considered as to US inventorship law, and what consequences do you foresee for those statutory changes?



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Message Received: US Courts Are Appropriate, More Convenient Venue to Adjudicate US IP Disputes

by | Feb 23, 2023 | , ,

Addressing personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens in a software licensing dispute, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a district court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a Dutch entity and the court’s decision to not dismiss the case for forum non conveniens. dmarcian, Inc. v. dmarcian Europe BV, Case Nos. 21-1721; -2005 (4th Cir. Feb. 14, 2023) (Wilkinson, Heytens, Hudson, JJ.)

dmarcian is a North Carolina-based software company that developed software to help email users authenticate incoming emails. A Dutch businessman who owned Mailmerk contacted dmarcian to offer to market the software in Europe. While dmarcian was initially unreceptive to the offer, the two parties eventually reached an oral agreement for Mailmerk to rebrand as dmarcian Europe BV (dmarcian BV) and sell the dmarcian software in Europe and Africa.

A dispute arose when dmarcian BV claimed ownership of portions of the dmarcian source code. dmarcian BV filed suit in the Netherlands, eventually filing for and winning injunctive relief in the Netherlands when dmarcian terminated dmarcian BV’s license. dmarcian then filed suit in the Western District of North Carolina asking for a preliminary injunction against dmarcian BV, which dmarcian BV opposed with a motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens. The district court denied the motion to dismiss and entered a preliminary injunction that precluded dmarcian BV from operating outside of Europe and Africa and required dmarcian BV to stop using the registered “dmarcian” trademark without a disclaimer. The district court later found dmarcian BV in contempt for violating the preliminary injunction and ordered dmarcian BV to pay $335,000 in sanctions. dmarcian BV appealed the injunction and the sanctions.

dmarcian BV argued that the district court did not have personal jurisdiction. The Fourth Circuit rejected that argument, finding that the North Carolina long-arm statute authorized jurisdiction over dmarcian BV. The Court found that the application of the long-arm statute to dmarcian BV complied with due process because dmarcian BV worked closely with the dmarcian team in North Carolina (e.g., receiving sales leads, attending virtual meetings, coordinating software development), dmarcian BV sought out dmarcian to initiate business, and there was a strong interest in protecting intellectual property rights in North Carolina.

The Fourth Circuit also upheld the denial of the dismissal for forum non conveniens because the Dutch court was not an adequate alternative forum since Dutch courts cannot effectively adjudicate US trademark claims. The Fourth Circuit found that any judgment by the Dutch court would have little effect in the United States and would deny relief to dmarcian for the infringement of its rights.

The Fourth Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction grant, finding that the district court properly applied US and North Carolina law extraterritorially and that dmarcian was likely to succeed on all claims. The Court found that US laws properly applied and that dmarcian was likely to succeed on the following claims:

  • Copyright infringement, because there was a registered copyright, dmarcian BV reproduced elements of the source code outside of the licensing agreement, and [...]

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Review Delayed Is Not Review Denied

by | Feb 16, 2023 | ,

Considering whether the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) Director must complete review of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (Board) inter partes review (IPR) decision within the statutory deadline for a final written decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that the statute imposes no such requirement. CyWee Group Ltd. v. Google LLC et al., Case Nos. 20-1565, -1567 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 8, 2023) (Prost, Taranto, Chen, JJ.).

In 2018, Google filed two IPR petitions challenging certain claims of CyWee’s patents. The Board issued its final written decisions in January 2020, determining that all challenged claims were unpatentable for obviousness. CyWee appealed to the Federal Circuit in March 2020. In addition to challenging the patentability decision, CyWee challenged the appointment of Board administrative patent judges (APJs) as unconstitutional in view of the Appointments Clause. In March 2021, the Court affirmed the Board’s decisions and rejected CyWee’s constitutional challenge. The Court issued its mandate on June 10, 2020.

Eleven days later, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in United States v. Arthrex, Inc., holding that APJs’ power to render final patentability decisions unreviewable by an accountable principal officer gave rise to an Appointments Clause violation but this violation could be remedied by, among other things, remanding to the acting PTO Director to decide to rehear the case. In response to a request from CyWee, the Federal Circuit recalled the mandate and remanded “for the limited purpose of allowing CyWee the opportunity to request Director rehearing of the final written decisions,” and required CyWee to inform the Court within 14 days of any decision denying rehearing. On remand, the Commissioner for Patents denied rehearing and ordered that the already-issued final written decisions were final decisions of the PTO. CyWee appealed.

CyWee contended that the post-Arthrex, mandated review by the PTO Director was untimely—and thus violative of due process—because the PTO Director did not have the ability to review the institution decision and final written decision within their respective three-month and one-year statutory deadlines. The Federal Circuit disagreed, calling CyWee’s contentions “meritless.” Rather, the Court found that because the PTO Director had permissibly delegated to the Commissioner for Patents authority to render institution and final decisions to the Board, those decisions were timely so long as the PTO Director’s delegees rendered them within the statutorily prescribed periods. By contrast, the PTO Director’s final review authority—a constitutional necessity born from Arthrex—has no similar statutory deadline.

CyWee also argued that the PTO Director’s later review was too late to satisfy a general requirement that the PTO Director consider the effect of regulations on the PTO’s ability to timely complete instituted IPRs. The Federal Circuit rejected this argument too, finding that even if the statute imposed a general timeliness requirement that was subject to judicial review, nothing about the process afforded to CyWee would have violated such a requirement.

With a different spin on the timeliness issue, CyWee also argued that the Board’s extension [...]

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Took a DNA Test, Turns Out “100% THAT BITCH” Is 100% Registrable

by | Feb 16, 2023 |

Addressing a refusal to register for failure to function as a trademark, the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (Board) reversed, finding that the evidence of consumer perception of “100% THAT BITCH” did not demonstrate that the proposed mark is such a widespread and common expression that it failed to function as a source identifier. In re Lizzo LLC, Serial Nos. 88466264, 88466281 (TTAB Feb. 2, 2023) (Cataldo, Pologeorgis, Coggins, ATJ).

World-renowned, Grammy-winning artist Lizzo, through her company, Lizzo LLC, filed two applications to register 100% THAT BITCH for use in connection with clothing and related goods in International Class 25. The mark is a reference to a lyric (“I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch”) from her chart-topping hit, “Truth Hurts.” The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) issued an office action refusing to register the mark based on failure to function as a trademark under Sections 1, 2 and 45 of the Trademark Act. Specifically, the examining attorney asserted that the phrase is a “commonplace expression widely used by a variety of sources to convey an ordinary, familiar, well-recognized sentiment.” The PTO denied the request for reconsideration, and Lizzo appealed.

In assessing a refusal to register for failure to function as a trademark, the Board must look to consumer perception of the mark; specifically, whether the mark serves merely an ornamental or informational purpose rather than a source-identifying one. In this case, the relevant consumer consists of the general public, as there were no limitations on the channels of trade or classes of consumers identified in the applications. The examining attorney argued that the evidence demonstrated only that the mark, as used on the relevant goods, portrayed “a message of self-confidence and female empowerment used by many different entities in a variety of settings”—a message that Lizzo “did not originate[,] . . . but merely popularized.”

The Board discounted much of the evidence proffered to show that the mark was ornamental as it largely all referred to Lizzo, her music and/or her song, “Truth Hurts,” demonstrating that “consumers encountering 100% THAT BITCH on the specific types of clothing identified in the application—even when offered by third parties—associate the term with Lizzo and her music.” The Board further noted that all of the evidence regarding third-party use corresponded with the release of Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts”—a correlation that suggests the term was not widely known or used until Lizzo popularized it.

Although there was no disagreement that the proposed mark conveys a “feeling of female strength, empowerment and independence,” the Board found that the record supported that “most consumers would perceive 100% THAT BITCH used on goods in the application as associated with Lizzo rather than as a commonplace expression.” Accordingly, the Board reversed the refusal to register.



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