October 8, 2026

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Hello Reader,

Plastic bags and paper labels are easy to tell apart. Could similar names for those products still create a trademark conflict?

In a recent case, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said yes.

A business sought to register MAXXOUT for general-purpose plastic bags and merchandise bags. The USPTO refused the application because of an existing MAXOUT! registration for multilayer pressure-sensitive paper labels. The Board affirmed the refusal.

The extra “X” and the exclamation point did little to separate names that sounded the same. The evidence also showed specialized suppliers offering bags and labels to business customers. The product descriptions did not contain the restrictions on customers or sales channels that the applicant’s arguments assumed.

The useful question is whether buyers might think the products come from the same business.

A customer does not need to mistake a bag for a label. Similar branding can suggest that two distinct products belong to one company or to connected companies.

When I think about a proposed brand name, I therefore look beyond businesses selling the exact same item:

• What related products do the same suppliers commonly sell?
• Would the same buyers encounter both brands?
• What impression does the name make when spoken, rather than just compared letter by letter?

This decision is specific to its evidence. It does not mean every bag brand conflicts with every label brand. It is a reminder that a search limited to identical names and identical products can miss an important part of the picture.

My practical takeaway for a new product launch: include the neighboring products and businesses that customers would naturally associate with it when planning the trademark search.

Read the MAXXOUT ruling

Best,

J.J. Lee and the Trademark Lawyer Law Firm Team

Trademarks Registered This Week

Here are the trademarks our firm helped register this week: