Board finds stylized HOP vaping mark likely to seem connected to TOP tobacco goods

Decision Desk · August 20, 2026 decision · Nonprecedential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 The Board marked this opinion nonprecedential, meaning it does not bind the Board in later cases.

The Board refused to register Shenzhen First Union Technology Co., Ltd.’s stylized HOP mark for e-cigarettes and other vaping goods in its application, a request to register a mark. The application describes HOP as letters divided into different shapes. The Board found a likelihood of confusion, a risk that buyers familiar with TOP for tobacco and smoking articles would think HOP vaping goods came from the same source. Opinion, pp. 2, 45.

Source: the Board’s complete opinion in case 91293320, with page citations below. This report describes the decision; it is not legal advice.

Top Tobacco, L.P. brought an opposition, a challenge to another party’s request to register a mark. The Board said Top Tobacco held five registrations, records showing TOP is registered as a trademark, for smoking tobacco and various smoking articles. Shenzhen First Union filed its HOP application on September 26, 2023, stating that it intended to use the mark. Opinion, pp. 2, 6.

Top Tobacco argued that TOP and HOP differed only in their first letter. Shenzhen First Union’s designer said HOP came from an internal phrase describing the product’s heating technology. The designer also said sellers of loose tobacco and rolling papers generally operated in a different market from electronic-device companies. Opinion, pp. 19, 21, 32.

The Board found TOP had some commercial strength, meaning consumer familiarity with the brand, among buyers who roll their own cigarettes. It also found that TOP could suggest better quality. It found the marks visually similar despite their different first letters because TOP could appear in the same stylized lettering as HOP. It also found that TOP and HOP sound similar because they rhyme. Opinion, pp. 14, 17, 23.

The Board found no evidence that Shenzhen First Union’s internal phrase for HOP had been communicated publicly. It found that any difference in meaning was outweighed by the marks’ similarities in appearance and sound. The Board found the tobacco and vaping goods related because both deliver nicotine. Opinion, pp. 24–25, 29.

The Board cited 58 other registrations held by 44 owners covering both kinds of goods as evidence that they could come from one source under one mark. It found that tobacco and vaping goods could reach the same sellers and overlapping buyers, including people who both smoke and vape. The Board said the HOP application placed no limits on where its goods could be sold, regardless of Shenzhen First Union’s stated intention to limit its sales channels. Opinion, pp. 36, 41, 43.

Section 2(d), the law governing registration when a mark is likely to confuse buyers about a product’s source, was the basis for the Board’s decision. The Board did not decide Top Tobacco’s separate claim that Shenzhen First Union lacked a genuine plan to use HOP for the listed goods when it filed the application. The decision addressed whether HOP could be registered, not whether either company could use its mark. Opinion, pp. 45–46.

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

Sources

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