## Facts

- General Mills Fun Group, Inc. (successor to Parker Brothers) had sold the board game MONOPOLY since 1935 and owned a federal trademark registration for “Monopoly.”
- Anti-Monopoly, Inc., formed in 1973 by economist Ralph Anspach, marketed a competing board game ultimately named ANTI-MONOPOLY.
- Anti-Monopoly sued for declaratory relief and cancellation of the MONOPOLY registration, alleging “Monopoly” was generic for a real-estate trading game in which players buy, sell, and mortgage properties.
- General Mills counterclaimed, asserting trademark validity and that ANTI-MONOPOLY infringed MONOPOLY, and sought injunctive and declaratory relief.
- After an initial bench trial judgment for General Mills, the Ninth Circuit previously remanded for reconsideration; on remand the district court took additional evidence, emphasizing consumer surveys, and again upheld validity and found infringement.
- Anti-Monopoly appealed from the post-remand judgment, challenging the district court’s findings on genericness and related conclusions.

## Issues

1. Whether “Monopoly,” as applied to a property-trading board game, was generic (at registration or through later genericide) because its primary significance to consumers was the product type rather than the producer.
2. Whether the district court’s findings on genericness and consumer perception, based largely on survey evidence, were clearly erroneous under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a).
3. If the mark’s validity could not be sustained, what effect that had on the infringement determination and related state-law claims and defenses.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment upholding the MONOPOLY trademark and finding infringement.
- Applying Rule 52(a), the court held the district court’s non-genericness finding was clearly erroneous because the full record left a definite and firm conviction that a mistake had been made.
- The court concluded the evidence, including consumer survey results, indicated “Monopoly” functioned in the public mind primarily as the name of the game/product category rather than as a source identifier.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the appellate court’s analysis, including reconsideration of remaining claims and defenses in light of the genericness determination.

## Legal Principles

- A term is generic, and thus not protectable as a trademark, if its primary significance to the relevant consuming public is to denote the product rather than the producer.
- Consumer survey evidence is probative on genericness, including product-request surveys (what consumers would ask for when seeking the product) and motivation surveys (whether purchase interest is driven by the product itself or by source preference).
- Under Rule 52(a), appellate courts defer to bench-trial factfinding but must reverse findings that are clearly erroneous when the record as a whole produces a definite and firm conviction of error.
- A determination that a mark is generic undermines trademark-based infringement relief because generic terms cannot serve as exclusive source identifiers.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that the district court clearly erred in finding MONOPOLY non-generic on the developed record, reversed the validity and infringement determinations premised on that finding, and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the principle that trademark protection fails when a term primarily names the product in consumers’ understanding.


Anti-Monopoly, Inc. v. Gen. Mills Fun Grp., Inc., 684 F.2d 1316 (9th Cir. 1982)