A Fairy Tale of Trademarks and Standing
Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a doll named Rapunzel. Rapunzel the doll was known throughout the land for her long, golden hair. Her hair caused many stares among the people of the land. (It also could serve as stairs, but that’s another story.)
One day a corporation, United Trademark Holdings, Inc. (UTH), sought to capture Rapunzel’s name for themselves, so that they and only they could market dolls called Rapunzel. Pursuant to that end, UTH filed to register the trademark RAPUNZEL for the goods of dolls and toy figures (International Class 28).
The government of that land (in the form of the USPTO) decreed that UTH should be awarded the exclusive rights to the trademark RAPUNZEL for dolls and toy figures, and it published the mark, to see if anyone in the land was brave enough to oppose its registration. You see, the law of the land (15 USC 1063(a)) provided that “[a]ny person who believes that he would be damaged by the registration of a mark upon the principal register … may, upon payment of the prescribed fee, file an opposition in the Patent and Trademark Office, stating the grounds therefor.” Was there anyone in the land, any person, brave enough to stop UTH from locking up the name of Rapunzel the doll as their own?
One person stepped forward to fight to liberate Rapunzel’s name. Rebecca Curtin, who besides being a law professor at Suffolk University (teaching IP law and being a nationally recognized scholar thereof), is also (as she described in her Opposition) a doll collector and a mother to a young daughter, a “consumer who participates amongst other consumers in the marketplace for dolls and toy figures of fairytale characters, including Rapunzel.” Professor Curtin sought to free Rapunzel’s name from UTH’s clutches, to allow other sellers to market dolls and toy figures under the name Rapunzel.
Unfortunately, there’s a grim (as opposed to Grimm) end to the story. This week the Federal Circuit ruled against Prof. Curtin in Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, No. 2023-2140 (Fed Cir May 22, 2025). The court didn’t reach the issue of whether UTH was entitled to a trademark registration for RAPUNZEL. Rather, the court held that Prof. Curtin lacked sufficient interest to oppose the mark’s registration, that she did not “fall within the zone of interests protected by the law invoked,” quoting Lexmark Int’l v. Static Control Components, 572 US 118, 129 (2014). In essence, the statute’s “any person” didn’t really mean any person, but only a person with an interest sufficiently protected by the law.
In making the ruling the court rejected UTH’s contention that the “zone of interest” should be limited to those with commercial interests, since (as the court noted) trademark law also protects against deceptive or misleading uses of marks, grounds which might be within the zone of interest of a consumer. But alas, Prof. Curtin had attacked UTH’s attempt to register the mark on other grounds (that the mark was generic or descriptive, and/or that it failed to function as a source-indicating trademark), and any damages to her were found to be too speculative to fall within the zone of interest that would provide her standing to oppose the registration of RAPUNZEL.
And thus a time of darkness fell upon the land.