## Facts

- Wallpaper Manufacturers, Ltd. (WPML), a U.K. company, owned a 1956 U.S. registration for the mark CROWN for wallpaper and treated CROWN as a principal brand used internationally.
- Crown Wallcovering Corp. (CWC), a New York company, used “Crown” as its corporate/trade name and used CROWN in connection with wallcoverings sold in the United States.
- WPML’s U.S. business under CROWN from 1957 to 1975 was modest and fluctuating but included ongoing sales and promotional activity.
- In 1961, WPML filed a 15 U.S.C. § 1065 affidavit asserting “continuous use” to support incontestability.
- In 1975, CWC petitioned the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to cancel WPML’s registration, alleging (i) abandonment through nonuse with intent not to resume and (ii) a knowingly false § 1065 affidavit.
- The TTAB granted cancellation based on abandonment and related inferences from limited use and WPML’s delayed challenge to CWC’s activities.
- WPML appealed; the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA) reviewed the record and the TTAB’s inferences.

## Issues

1. Whether WPML abandoned the CROWN mark in the United States through nonuse with intent not to resume, as allegedly shown by limited or intermittent sales and delayed action against CWC.
2. Whether WPML’s 1961 § 1065 affidavit was a knowingly false, material representation supporting cancellation on a fraud theory.

## Decision

- The CCPA reversed the TTAB’s cancellation order.
- The court held CWC failed to prove abandonment because the evidence showed continuing, even if limited, U.S. use and did not show intent not to resume.
- The court held CWC failed to prove the § 1065 affidavit was knowingly false or made with intent to deceive.
- The petition to cancel was denied and the CROWN registration remained in force.

## Legal Principles

- Abandonment under the Lanham Act requires both nonuse and intent not to resume; limited, sporadic, or fluctuating use is not the same as nonuse.
- A trademark owner can lose distinctiveness by failing to police widespread third-party use, but the owner is not required to act immediately against every potentially infringing use.
- Delayed enforcement may be reasonable where questionable uses are short-lived or initially limited, and a use may become actionable only when it shifts into trademark use that threatens source significance (“creeping” infringement).
- Fraud-based cancellation requires proof of a knowingly false, material statement made with intent to deceive; a disputed or reasonable understanding of “continuous use,” without deceptive intent, is insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court restored the registration because the challenger did not meet the heavy burden to show abandonment (nonuse plus intent not to resume) or fraud (knowing falsity and intent to deceive), and it rejected the view that modest sales or delayed policing alone strip a mark of protection.


Wallpaper Mfrs., Ltd. v. Crown Wallcovering Corp., 680 F.2d 755 (C.C.P.A. 1982)