An international Christian ministry, The Salvation Army has as its mission in part to meet human needs without discrimination. But some in its ranks faced a trademark registration battle in which a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiner sought expressly to discriminate between The Salvation Army’s entities.
However, the applicant prevailed, thanks to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s faithful application of precedent concerning unity of control. In a non-precedential decision in In re The Salvation Army, Serial No. 86150336 (July 8, 2016), the TTAB reversed a likelihood of confusion refusal to register the mark Coats for Kids as shown below, for charitable fundraising services, to The Salvation Army, an Illinois corporation:
