Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Do You Have Standing ? Untangling Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, Inc.
By Irene Calboli, Texas A&M University School of Law
As Intellectual Property experts know, the rationale for protecting trademarks is consumer-centered, meaning that the social costs of granting trademark protection—granting traders the exclusive rights to use a mark and prevent others from using identical or similar signs in the marketplace—are justified because marks are necessary to identify products and convey information to consumers regarding the products’ origin and quality. This principle also forms the basis of the requirements for trademark protection. Notably, a sign must be distinctive to be protected as a mark, lest it would fail to fulfil its signaling function for consumers. Likewise, consumers are at the core of the trademark infringement standard—“a likelihood of consumer confusion”—which centers on preventing traders from deceiving consumers into purchasing their products by using confusingly similar signs to identify them.
Yet despite consumers’ fundamental role in shaping trademark rules, they do not seem to have any say in the trademark process, at least regarding their legal standing in trademark proceedings. Specifically, in the United States (U.S.), courts have consistently held that consumers lack standing, whether seeking to oppose a trademark application or bringing a claim for trademark infringement based on consumer confusion. In other words, somewhat paradoxically, trademark protection is all about consumers, but without allowing consumers to join the party! Here is where the recent legal saga surrounding the application for the mark “RAPUNZEL” comes into play. As readers will see, this “legal fairy tale” brought the issue of consumer standing back to the forefront of the trademark debate. Yet, what started as a hopeful journey has again confirmed the status quo, denying individual consumers legal standing once more, despite Rapunzel’s fame and charm.
To briefly summarize the plot, United Trademark Holdings (UTH), a Beverly Hills-based dolls-and-toys company, filed an application to register the name RAPUNZEL for dolls and toy figures. When the application was published, a consumer—in this case, a very expert trademark law consumer, Professor Rebecca Curtin—filed an opposition to the registration under Section 13 of the U.S. Trademark Act (Lanham Act). Specifically, Professor Curtin alleged that the mark was descriptive and generic, and failed to function as a trademark, and that UTH committed fraud in submitting the application (Curtin at 1363). Additionally, she claimed that if UTH registered the name RAPUNZEL as a mark, this would decrease competition, prevent the creation of new Rapunzel-themed dolls and toys, and increase the costs of Rapunzel merchandise (Curtin at 1363).
Professor Curtin’s opposition was based on the text of Section 13 of the Lanham Act, which specifically states that, once a trademark application is published in the Official Gazette, “[a]ny person who believes that he would be damaged by the registration of a mark . . . may . . . file an opposition” within 30 days. Yet the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) dismissed the opposition, concluding that Professor Curtin was not statutorily entitled to oppose the registration (Curtin at 1361). Undeterred, Professor Curtin appealed, but the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit again rejected her demand and affirmed the TTAB’s decision that an individual consumer lacked standing to oppose UTH’s application (Curtin at 1361).
To reach its decision, the Federal Circuit referred to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., where the Court considered the plaintiff’s “zone of interests” on the alleged injury and whether the “proximate cause” was adequately shown (Lexmark at 126). Under the zone of interests inquiry, the Court considers whether the plaintiff’s interests “fall within the zone of interests protected by the law invoked” (Lexmark at 129). Additionally, to satisfy the proximate cause requirement, the “statutory cause of action is limited to plaintiffs whose injuries are proximately caused by violations of the statute” (Lexmark at 132). The Federal Circuit had previously applied this test in 2020 in Corcamore, LLC v. SFM. LLC., determining that the Lexmark zone-of-interests and proximate causation requirements controlled the standing issue under Section 14 of the Lanham Act, which addresses cancellation proceedings, because it was a statutory cause of action (Corcamore at 1304–05). Now, the court had to decide whether the same reasoning should apply to Section 13, the opposition proceeding. Ultimately, the answer was yes.
In particular, the Federal Circuit concluded that Professor Curtin lacked standing because her interests as a consumer did not fall within the interests directly protected under Section 13 of the Lanham Act (Curtin at 1371-72). First, the court reasoned that the TTAB correctly applied the Lexmark framework to determine standing to bring opposition proceedings under Section 13, because the provision is “substantially equivalent” to the cancellation provision in Section 14 (Curtin at 1367). Quite problematically, the court directly supported that Section 13 was intended to protect commercial interests, not consumer interests, and Professor Curtin’s opposition based on genericness, descriptiveness, and failure to function as a trademark did not fall within these interests (Curtin at 1369). The court went on to consider the proximate causation issue, finding that Professor Curtin’s alleged harms of reduced competition, increased costs, and chilling of new product creation were too speculative of potential harms to commercial actors, and so were not proximately caused by UTH’s registration (Curtin at 1370). Thus, it held that TTAB had properly applied the Lexmark framework to conclude that a consumer was not entitled to oppose UTH’s registration of the RAPUNZEL mark (Curtin at 1371-72).
Professor Curtin fought back and filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2025, challenging whether the Lexmark judicial standing framework should apply to administrative trademark opposition proceedings. While certainly a long shot, this petition represents a remote possibility that the Court will intervene and possibly rule in favor of a shift toward a more consumer-friendly trademark world. To date, however, things do not seem very bright. The Supreme Court distributed the petition for conference in December 2025, and the case is still pending a response as of early 2026. At this time, this writer fears that the Supreme Court will likely decline to hear the case or, should the Court grant certiorari, it will again confirm that consumers lack standing. Still, not all hope is lost yet, and perhaps the Supreme Court will deliver a victory to consumers and the public interest. Only time will tell.
What is certain, however, is that the Federal Circuit’s current decision further narrows consumers’ standing in trademark proceedings, including opposition proceedings. Yet this unfortunate result once again runs counter to the foundational premise of trademark law: consumer protection. By contrast, by restricting opposition standing to those who can demonstrate commercial injury, the decision effectively eliminates the very class trademark law is designed to protect—consumers. This ending is as paradoxical as it is incorrect based on the language of the law, as the Lanham Act refers to “any person who believes” to be damaged by the issuing of a trademark registration without specifying the type of interest at stake. Instead, in the eyes of American courts, consumers do not belong to the category of “persons,” at least not persons sufficiently qualified to have a say in these proceedings.
Of course, this conclusion is not as surprising. Despite the consumer protection narrative, U.S. trademark law has long been primarily concerned with protecting business interests. In this context, consumers are simply proxies for assessing the validity of opposition and infringement claims brought by other businesses. Still, this leaves readers with a fundamental question, one that perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court will address should it decide to hear the case: How can a legal system, which is built around the notion of protecting consumers and the concepts of distinctiveness and confusion, decide to ignore consumers’ interests and preclude consumers from invoking the very norms that should protect them?
Hopefully, Rapunzel will work some magic in the U.S. Supreme Court and untangle the unfortunate series of decisions related to consumer standing in trademark law to date.
Works Cited :
Corcamore, LLC v. SFM, LLC, 978 F.3d 1298 (Fed. Cir. 2020).
Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, Inc., 137 F.4th 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2025).
Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Do You Have Standing? Untangling Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, Inc.
