Engineered Tax Services, Inc. v. Scarpello Consulting, Inc., No. 18-13690 (11th Cir. 2020)
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ETS filed a trademark infringement action against Scarpello over the "Engineered Tax Services" mark under the Lanham Act. The district court held that the mark lacked distinctiveness and granted summary judgment in favor of Scarpello.
The Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that the district court erred in concluding, as a matter of law, that ETS's mark was not suggestive, but merely descriptive—and thus invalid. Furthermore, the district court failed to consider whether the mark might also have acquired any protectible secondary meaning or whether any actionable infringement occurred. The court held that a jury could reasonably find the mark inherently distinctive and remanded for further proceedings.
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