Raphael Bellum PLLC Achieves Significant Win at TTAB

August 4, 2025

Last month, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) granted firm client Zero Technologies, LLC’s petition to cancel a competitor’s trademark registration due to a finding of likelihood of confusion with the client’s senior mark.

Zero Technologies, which is part of the Culligan International Co. family of companies, has marketed and sold a wide variety of high-quality water filtration products under its well-known and federally registered ZEROWATER mark for more than 20 years.  In 2021, the China-based Hangzhou Yilin Technology Research Co., Ltd. (“Hangzhou”) obtained a U.S. registration for the mark ZEROLIQUID and began using that mark to sell water filter replacement products, including products that Hangzhou expressly promoted as being compatible with ZEROWATER products.

The Raphael Bellum team, led by Adam Sikich and David Lipson, filed a petition to cancel the ZEROLIQUID registration on the grounds that Hangzhou’s use thereof is likely to cause (and indeed already had caused) confusion on the part of consumers as to the source of the parties’ respective products.  The TTAB agreed, and on July 14, 2025, granted the petition to cancel, finding that consumer confusion was likely to occur based on the similarity of the ZEROWATER and ZEROLIQUID marks and the legally identical nature of the parties’ goods and the channels of trade in which they are sold.