TTAB Q4 2025: Opposition Plaintiffs Won Roughly Five of Every Eight Decisions

When the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cleared its opposition docket in Q4 2025, the people who filed the oppositions mostly walked away winners. Of 1,587 opposition decision entries, 978 were sustained and 578 were dismissed or denied — sustained outcomes ran about 62% of the merits-bearing mix. For a forum where the conventional wisdom is that most disputes settle quietly, that is a striking win rate for the party doing the challenging.

The headline number practitioners will quote — filings up 6.7% to 7,168 — is real but secondary. The more interesting story is who is winning, and how few of these matters reach a contested merits ruling at all.

Executive Summary

• Opposition plaintiffs dominated the decisions. Sustained entries made up roughly 62% of opposition decision outcomes (978 of 1,587). When the Board actually ruled, the challenger usually prevailed.
• Most matters never get a ruling. Extensions of time to oppose are a holding action, not a fight: of 3,085 terminated extensions, 3,084 closed with no decision. The opposition pipeline is overwhelmingly a waiting room.
• Filings rose 6.7%, led by the front of the pipeline. Q4 logged 7,168 filings versus 6,718 in Q3 (+450), with extensions and oppositions driving the increase.
• Cancellations were a closer fight. Petitioners won 355 of 624 merits-coded cancellation outcomes (55%) — a meaningfully tighter split than oppositions.
• The quarter ended with a wave of ex parte housekeeping. The December 31 decision set was thick with ex parte appeals dismissed for failure to file a brief — applicants who started an appeal and then walked away.

A note on units: throughout this report, proceedings with a decision count cases, while decision entries count rulings. A single proceeding can generate more than one entry. Percentages below are computed on decision entries unless stated otherwise.

1. Filing Volume

Proceeding Type	Q4 2025 Filings	Q3 2025 Filings	QoQ Count Change
Extensions of Time to Oppose	3,339	3,053	+286
Oppositions	2,107	2,002	+105
Ex Parte Appeal	974	908	+66
Cancellations	742	748	-6
Miscellaneous	6	6	0
Concurrent Use	0	1	-1
Total	7,168	6,718	+450 (6.7% increase)

The growth came from the adversarial front end. Extensions added 286 filings and oppositions another 105 — together more than the quarter's entire net gain. Cancellations were the lone major category to slip, and only by six.

The shape of the docket did not change; it just got busier. Extensions still lead by a wide margin, oppositions still sit second, and ex parte appeals — applicants fighting USPTO refusals rather than private parties — held their roughly one-in-seven share of new filings. A 6.7% quarter is a real uptick, not a structural shift.

2. Outcomes by Proceeding Type

Proceeding Type	Proceedings With Any Decision	Decision Entries	Sustained	Granted	Affirmed	Reversed	Dismissed or Denied	Moot	Reconsideration	Other
Oppositions	1,571	1,587	978	0	0	0	578	4	3	24
Ex Parte Appeal	700	734	0	0	55	6	242	32	291	108
Cancellations	638	646	0	355	0	0	269	4	2	16
Extensions of Time to Oppose	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0

A 62% sustain rate is not a coin flip. By the time an opposition reaches a Board ruling, the challenger has usually already won the argument that mattered.

— Howard Katzenberg, Founder, GleanMark

Oppositions carried the decision docket, and they leaned hard toward the challenger. Why so lopsided? We think this likely reflects selection, not Board bias: the weak oppositions settle, get withdrawn, or never make it past an extension, so the cases that survive to a ruling are disproportionately the ones the plaintiff was always going to win — frequently on default or thin defense rather than a fully litigated record.

Cancellations tell a different story. Petitioners won 355 of the 624 grant-or-denial outcomes, a 55% split that is close enough to be a real contest. Canceling an existing registration is simply harder than blocking a pending application, and the numbers show it.

Ex parte appeals run on their own vocabulary, and the merits signal is small. Affirmed means the refusal stuck (55 entries); reversed means the applicant got the refusal overturned (just 6). Everything else — 242 dismissed or denied, 291 reconsideration entries, 108 "other" — is largely procedural. Read this row as a docket being cleared, not a referendum on examiner correctness.

3. Terminations

Proceeding Type	Proceedings Terminated	Terminated With Decision	Terminated With No Decision
Extensions of Time to Oppose	3,085	1	3,084
Oppositions	1,553	1,499	54
Ex Parte Appeal	935	201	734
Cancellations	850	522	328
Miscellaneous	5	0	5

Two rows in this table explain the whole forum. Extensions terminate almost entirely without a decision — 3,084 of 3,085 — because an extension is a clock, not a claim; it expires, settles, or ripens into an opposition. Oppositions are the mirror image: 1,499 of 1,553 terminations came with a decision. A no-decision close is not a loss. It is usually a settlement, withdrawal, or abandonment, and it is the dominant way trademark disputes actually end.

4. High-Profile Proceedings

Owner	Q4 Proceeding Numbers	Mix and Status
Amazon Technologies, Inc.	98665817, 91304149, 91304139, 91304113, 99242794, 99210078	An ex parte appeal, three oppositions, and two extensions; all terminated or not instituted by report date.
Apple Inc.	99215139, 99438877, 99220742	Extensions only; one not instituted, two terminated.
Disney Enterprises, Inc.	99225739, 99216571, 91304124	Two extensions and one opposition; all terminated.
HERMES Fabrik pharmazeutischer Präparate Franz Gradinger GmbH & Co. KG	79975881, 79387140	Two ex parte appeals (both Madrid-route applications); both terminated.
Google LLC	99237883, 91303948	One extension and one opposition; both terminated.

The Big Tech rows tell a consistent story, and it is a quiet one. Amazon, Apple, Disney, and Google all show the same playbook: file extensions to keep options open, escalate to a formal opposition selectively, and let most of it close out without a ruling. Apple's Q4 footprint here is purely defensive — extensions only, no instituted opposition in this data. Amazon was the most active escalator, with three oppositions on the board. None of these resolved on the merits in-quarter, so there is no marquee Big Tech holding to report; the signal is housekeeping, not warfare.

One owner name deserves a flag for readers who will recognize it: the HERMES filer here is the German pharmaceutical and supplement maker Hermes Fabrik pharmazeutischer Präparate Franz Gradinger (brands like CALCIMED and the HERMES vitamin line) — not the French luxury house Hermès. Both apps entered via the Madrid Protocol (serials beginning "79") and both terminated.

5. Notable Decisions

Decision Date	Proceeding	Type	Parties	Decision
Dec. 31, 2025	91296927	Opposition	Mattel, Inc.; Patricia W Brannon	SUSTAINED
Dec. 31, 2025	91295940	Opposition	Great Giant Foods USA, Inc.; Polish Folklore Import Co., Inc.	DISMISSED W/ PREJUDICE
Dec. 31, 2025	91295942	Opposition	Great Giant Foods USA, Inc.; Polish Folklore Import Co., Inc.	DISMISSED W/ PREJUDICE
Dec. 31, 2025	91301495	Opposition	Click Therapeutics, Inc.; Osstem Implant Co., Ltd.	DISMISSED
Dec. 31, 2025	91302044	Opposition	FISI Fibre Sintetiche Spa; Loftex Home, LLC	DISMISSED W/O PREJUDICE
Dec. 31, 2025	91303143	Opposition	Natalie Dombrowski; Selective Marketplace Limited	DISMISSED W/O PREJUDICE
Dec. 31, 2025	92084640	Cancellation	Nowak Enterprises, Incorporated; Renew Fitness, LLC	DISMISSED W/ PREJUDICE
Dec. 31, 2025	92086940	Cancellation	Madaffer Enterprises, Inc.; St. Julian Wine Company, Inc.	DISMISSED W/ PREJUDICE
Dec. 31, 2025	79353716	Ex Parte Appeal	Trim Gjota	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF
Dec. 31, 2025	79383875	Ex Parte Appeal	YNSECT	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF
Dec. 31, 2025	97118283	Ex Parte Appeal	Almost Friday LLC	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF
Dec. 31, 2025	97299474	Ex Parte Appeal	Colonial Parking, Inc.	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF
Dec. 31, 2025	97648333	Ex Parte Appeal	My Purposeful Wealth, Inc. DBA Purposeful Wealth	EX PARTE APPEAL DISMISSED
Dec. 31, 2025	97857482	Ex Parte Appeal	Rebel Daughter Cookies, LLC	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF
Dec. 31, 2025	98184197	Ex Parte Appeal	Dar Al-Handasah Consultants Shair and Partners Holdings Ltd	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF
Dec. 31, 2025	98185881	Ex Parte Appeal	Pendragon Trading Pte. Ltd.	DISMISSED — NO BRIEF

Two end-of-quarter patterns stand out. On the inter partes side, the marquee win was Mattel's, which sustained its opposition in 91296927 — the latest in a long line of brand-enforcement actions from a company that has aggressively policed BARBIE and its toy marks for years. The rest of the December 31 opposition set closed on procedural posture — with or without prejudice — rather than full merits rulings, a reminder that even the "decided" column is mostly about how a case ended, not who had the better trademark.

On the ex parte side, December 31 was a graveyard for abandoned appeals: applicant after applicant let the deadline pass without filing a brief. These are not refusals being affirmed on the merits — they are appeals that were started and then dropped. Notably, two of them (Trim Gjota and the insect-protein company YNSECT) came in through the Madrid Protocol, where foreign applicants frequently begin a U.S. appeal and then decline to follow through.

Practitioner Takeaways

1. An extension is an early-warning system, not a threat. With 3,339 extensions filed and almost none ending in a decision, the smart read is to treat extension activity against your client's marks as a tripwire — most won't ripen, but the ones that do escalate fast.
2. Cancellation is the harder swing. Petitioners won oppositions about 62% of the time but cancellations only 55%. If your only path is canceling a registered mark, price in the tougher odds.
3. Don't confuse "decided" with "litigated." The bulk of oppositions that terminate with a decision do so on procedural grounds. A SUSTAINED entry frequently reflects a default or thin defense, not a fully tried record.
4. Read ex parte dismissals correctly. A "dismissed for failure to file a brief" line is an abandoned appeal, not an examiner vindicated on the merits — and Madrid-route applicants account for a visible share of them.
5. Watch all three channels for big portfolios. Amazon, Apple, Disney, and Google each used extensions, oppositions, or appeals in Q4. Monitoring only newly filed oppositions misses most of what they're doing.

Figures reflect USPTO TTAB records as of the December 31, 2025 report date and will change as cases progress. This report is informational and is not legal advice.

Explore more USPTO data analysis on the GleanMark Insights blog.