American Circuit v. Oregon Breakers

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Although the current relationships among the various com- panies are fairly straightforward, we briefly discuss the his- tory of the STAB-LOK trademark because an understanding of where and when the parties derived their trademark rights provides useful background to our analysis.

In 1950, Federal Pacific Electric Company (“FPE”) adopted the trademark STAB-LOK for circuit breakers. FPE eventually sold its U.S. circuit breaker business, including the U.S. STAB-LOK trademark, to Challenger Electric. In 1988, Challenger Electric sold the circuit breaker portion of its busi- ness to ACBC’s predecessor, which in turn assigned all of its rights in the business and trademark to Provident Industries, Inc. Provident Industries, Inc. changed its corporate name to American Circuit Breaker Corporation in late 1988.

Since 1950, ACBC and its predecessors have continuously used the trademark STAB-LOK on advertising, marketing, and sales of circuit breakers in the United States. ACBC is the record owner of the U.S. mark STAB-LOK, which was issued in 1988. Under the Lanham Act, the mark is incontestable and ACBC has the exclusive right to use the mark. See Entrepre- 4632…