Bose Corp. insists it did nothing wrong. At worst, the company made a small, good faith error. That’s not how the trademark office sees it.

The USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) ruled in late 2007 that there was a problem with one of Bose’s filings. When the company in 2001 renewed a registration for its famous “wave” mark, Bose’s general counsel, Mark E. Sullivan, had sworn that the mark was being used on various electronic devices, including audio tape players.