Success for Valeant Pharmaceuticals

We acted on behalf of Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the requesting party, in a Section 45 cancellation proceeding against the registration for the mark RIPPED FX8 design. The registrant filed an affidavit which included an advertisement with a picture of a bottle of the product at issue which was labeled with the trade-mark. The Hearing Officer indicated that the product clearly showed the manner in which the mark was physically affixed to the product. The advertisement included text which identified an entity by the name of NO1 Science as the developer of the product. The advertisement made reference to the www.No1science.com website. Additionally, there was a public notice at the bottom of the advertisement that the mark was a registered trade-mark of NO1 Science. The Hearing Officer held that the evidence identified NO1 Science as the source of the product. The registrant had provided no evidence about this entity or its relationship to the registrant. The evidence indicated that the source of the goods was NO1 Science and not the registrant. Thus, in the absence of evidence surrounding the relationship between NO1 Science and the registrant, any use set out in the affidavit did not appear to be use that accrued on behalf of the registrant. Therefore, Valeant was successful and the registration will be cancelled. More…