Board refuses CONNECT2INVESTORS registration after finding similar marks and services

Decision Desk · November 10, 2026 decision · Nonprecedential

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the Board) is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel that decides challenges to trademark registrations and appeals from refused applications. The Board marked this opinion nonprecedential, meaning it does not bind the Board in later cases.

Ashok Kandasamy Shanmugam’s application, a request to register a mark for listed services, sought CONNECT2INVESTORS for facilities where entrepreneurs would meet investors. The application presented the mark in standard characters, meaning it did not specify a font, size or color. Cetera Financial Holdings filed an opposition, a formal challenge to registering a mark named in an application. The Board sustained Cetera’s challenge and refused registration after finding the marks and services similar. Opinion, pp. 1–2, 10, 17.

Source: the Board’s complete opinion in case 91294720, with page citations below. This report describes the decision; it is not legal advice.

The Board based its decision on Cetera’s common-law rights, rights gained by using a mark without registering it, in a stylized CONNECT2INVESTORS mark. It found Cetera used that mark by March 2021, before Shanmugam applied on December 14, 2022. The Board also found the marks similar and the parties’ services similar. Opinion, pp. 3, 8, 17.

Cetera also cited its ICONNECT2INVEST registration, an existing federal listing for a mark, covering online stock brokerage. Cetera filed documents and witness evidence; Shanmugam filed no evidence. Shanmugam argued that Cetera mainly used its mark in internal communications. Opinion, pp. 2–3, 7.

The Board found enough public use of Cetera’s mark to establish those rights. The Board said Cetera supplied materials to its financial advisers for use with their customers. Opinion, p. 7.

The Board said Shanmugam’s mark could appear in the same font, size and color as Cetera’s stylized mark. The Board found the shared wording made the marks look similar and that they also sounded similar. The Board found Cetera’s services overlapped all three groups of services in Shanmugam’s application. Opinion, pp. 11, 14.

Shanmugam argued that customers of these services would be careful. The Board said the services involved meetings, networking and presentations rather than investment decisions. It found no evidence that all online video viewers or virtual meeting participants take great care in choosing those events. Opinion, pp. 16–17.

Shanmugam also argued that the CONNECT2 portion of Cetera’s mark was weak because others used or registered marks containing those characters. The Board found no evidence that any other party used or registered a mark. The Board made no finding on whether Cetera’s word-only CONNECT2INVESTORS mark was distinctive. Opinion, pp. 6, 17.

This report describes the decision as issued; it does not follow any later appeal.

Sources

• The Board’s complete opinion; GleanMark case record.