PAGS cannot register PET - AGREE GROOMING SUPPLIES after its earlier PET - AGREE ruling

Decision Desk · September 16, 2026 decision · Nonprecedential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 The Board marked this opinion nonprecedential, meaning it does not bind the Board in later cases.

PAGS Inc. filed an application, a request to register a mark, for PET - AGREE GROOMING SUPPLIES for wholesale stores offering pet-grooming supplies to pet professionals and commercial groomers. Mars, Incorporated filed an opposition, a challenge to registration of that mark, and the Board ruled that PAGS cannot register it under this application because an earlier decision between the parties covered the same dispute. Opinion, pp. 1, 33.

Source: the Board’s complete opinion in case 91263504, with page citations below. This report describes the decision; it is not legal advice.

The Board found that adding GROOMING SUPPLIES did not change the overall impression of PAGS’s earlier PET - AGREE mark. It also found that the new description of wholesale stores narrowed services covered by the earlier decision rather than presenting a different set of facts. Opinion, pp. 25, 29.

PAGS’s earlier application covered PET - AGREE for wholesale, retail and online stores offering pet-grooming supplies. On July 15, 2019, the Board ruled for Mars in the earlier challenge. The current application limits the stores to wholesale services for pet professionals and commercial groomers and expressly excludes pet food, treats and related products. Opinion, pp. 16–17, 28.

Mars argued that adding GROOMING SUPPLIES did not change the mark’s overall impression. PAGS argued that the added words changed the mark’s appearance, sound and overall impression. PAGS also argued that the new limits on its market, stores and customers raised questions different from those in the earlier case. Opinion, pp. 24, 28.

PAGS separately asked to limit its application to stores offering pet-grooming supplies made and branded by other companies. The Board found that this change narrowed the description but denied the request because PAGS had not agreed to accept a ruling on the existing, broader description. The Board also found that the proposed wording could still include Mars’s PEDIGREE-branded products. Opinion, pp. 12, 14, 16.

The Board found that GROOMING SUPPLIES described what the stores offered and did not change the overall impression of PET - AGREE. The Board found that the evidence in the two cases was substantially the same. Opinion, pp. 25, 28.

The Board found that the new customer and wholesale limits narrowed services already covered by the earlier application rather than presenting a different set of facts. It said excluding pet food did not change the earlier question of whether PAGS’s services and Mars’s products were related. Opinion, pp. 29–30.

PAGS filed the current application on January 21, 2020, the same day it asked a court to dismiss its appeal, a request for review of the earlier decision. The Board said that timing alone did not establish an intent to evade the earlier ruling, and it did not decide PAGS’s intent. The Board did not decide Mars’s separate claims that buyers might confuse the sources of the parties’ products or services or that registration would weaken Mars’s marks. Opinion, pp. 32–33.

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

Sources

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