IP Law Daily, TRADEMARK—TTAB: Refusal to register ENAIRA on false association grounds reversed, (May 21, 2025)

By Karen Servidea, J.D.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, which allegedly uses the mark, is not sufficiently well-known in the United States that U.S. consumers would presume a connection with it.

The standard-character mark ENAIRA can be registered on the Supplemental Register in connection with financial services notwithstanding its alleged use by the Central Bank of Nigeria because the bank is not so well-known to consumers in the United States that they would falsely presume an association with the bank, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has decided. The Board reversed the USPTO’s refusal of a pro se party’s application to register the mark under Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, in a nonprecedential decision (In re Mefona LLC, No. 97065669 (T.T.A.B. May 14, 2025)).

Applicant Mefona LLC sought registration of the standard-character mark ENAIRA for “Financial services, namely, providing a virtual currency for use by members of an on-line community via a global computer network” in International Class 36. The company initially sought registration on the Principal Register. The Examining Attorney refused registration under Section 2(e)(1) of the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(e)(1), because the “Naira” is Nigeria’s currency, and “eNaira” is the name given to Nigerian currency in electronic form, rendering “eNaira” descriptive of the type of currency the company provides. The company then amended its application to seek registration on the Supplemental Register. The Examining Attorney again refused registration, this time under Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), on the ground that the mark falsely suggests a connection with the Central Bank of Nigeria. The company appealed pro se.

The Board’s duty to decide notwithstanding the company’s misconduct. At the outset, the Board noted that the appeal was fully briefed and designated as ready for decision a year-and-a-half after it was filed and more than three years after the underlying application was filed. Describing such timeframe as “an unusually long time,” the Board stated that the company was responsible for “the long and tortured prosecution of [the] application and the similarly long and tortured procedural history of [the] appeal.” Before detailing the company’s filings, the Board more generally described the company as having made numerous unfounded accusations of unethical and illegal conduct by the Examining Attorney, USPTO officials, and the Board; unnecessarily inflating the record and complicating and prolonging the disposition of the case; and causing the Board and other USPTO offices to waste resources on matters not germane to the case’s merits. The Board explained that it nevertheless was “duty-bound to decide, based solely on the record and the applicable law, whether the evidence shows that Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act bars registration of [the company’s] mark.”

False suggestion of a connection. Turning to the merits, the Board set out the four elements that the Examining Attorney needed to prove to establish a false suggestion of a connection between the company and the Central Bank of Nigeria: (1) that the term ENAIRA in the company’s mark is the same as, or a close approximation of, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s name or identity, as previously used or identified with the bank; (2) that the term ENAIRA in the company’s mark would be recognized as such because it points uniquely and unmistakably to the Central Bank of Nigeria; (3) that the Central Bank of Nigeria is not connected to or otherwise affiliated with the company; and (4) that the Central Bank of Nigeria is of sufficient fame or reputation that, when the term ENAIRA is used in connection with the services identified in the application, a connection with the bank would be presumed.

The case turned on the fourth element and, in particular, on the Examining Attorney’s argument that the Central Bank of Nigeria is so well-known that when the company uses ENAIRA for financial services, consumers will presume a connection with the bank. The Board noted that the Central Bank of Nigeria is a foreign “institution” for purposes of Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act and that in prior cases in which the Board has found a false suggestion of a connection with a foreign person or institution, the records have included evidence of significant exposure of the person or entity to United States consumers. The Board thus examined the record to determine whether the Central Bank of Nigeria is of sufficient fame among United States consumers that when ENAIRA is used in connection with the specified services, a connection with the bank would be presumed.

The Board noted that the Examining Attorney did not make of record any evidence regarding the extent, if any, of the exposure of any of the materials in the record to United States consumers. Many of the webpages and articles in the record, including those with references to the Central Bank of Nigeria, came from what appeared to the Board to be foreign websites. The record lacked evidence as to whether or to what extent U.S. consumers would encounter such foreign websites, the Board explained. It further pointed to a lack of evidence of the size or activities of the Nigerian diaspora in the United States; the extent or nature of any financial relations between the United States and Nigeria; and the number of visitors to the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria, including the number of visitors from the United States.

Thus, the Board rejected the inference urged by the Examining Attorney that the Central Bank of Nigeria is so well-known to United States consumers that use of the ENAIRA mark would cause consumers of the services identified in the application to presume a connection with the bank. It therefore reversed the refusal to register. In a concluding footnote, however, the Board noted that the decision “does not prevent the Central Bank of Nigeria, or any other interested party, from petitioning to cancel [the company’s] Supplemental Register registration based on Section 2(a), or other grounds for cancellation, and providing a better-developed record.”

The Case is Serial No. 97065669.

Judge: Larkin, C.

Attorneys: Mefona LLC, pro Se. Heather Schubert for the USPTO.

Cases: Trademark USPTO