The latest action is a Non-Final Office Action issued Sep 27, 2026 (19 pages) against SKYLINE JUICE, Serial No. 99882477, filed by United Beverage LLC on Jun 12, 2026 for Class 32 juice beverages. No response appears on record yet.
What the examiner is refusing and requiring
1. § 2(d) likelihood-of-confusion refusal. The OA text states registration is refused because of a likelihood of confusion with the mark in U.S. Registration No. 6937972 — SKYLINES, owned by Almassiva GmbH & Co. KG.
The problem is a hard one: the refusal rests on the SKYLINES registration, whose recitation expressly covers "non-alcoholic beverages, namely, fruit drinks and soft drinks" — squarely overlapping the applicant's Class 32 fruit/grape/orange/mango juice beverages. And the shared element is the dominant one: SKYLINE vs SKYLINES, nearly identical in appearance, sound, and meaning.
2. Disclaimer requirement. The examiner requires applicant to disclaim "JUICE" as merely descriptive of the goods… Note how this compounds the § 2(d) problem: if JUICE adds no distinctive force, the marks are effectively SKYLINE vs SKYLINES for overlapping fruit drinks.
Deadline
Response is due within 3 months of the issue date — Dec 27, 2026 — extendable once, for a fee, to a hard ceiling of Mar 27, 2027 (6 months from issuance).
The applicant's realistic options
- Comply with the disclaimer and argue the § 2(d) refusal. Conceding the JUICE disclaimer is close to unavoidable for a goods list of this kind… Frankly, identical dominant terms + directly overlapping beverage goods is one of the weakest § 2(d) postures there is.
- Consent or coexistence agreement with Almassiva. The cleanest cure if the registrant cooperates — but their Class 30 recitation covers fruit drinks and soft drinks themselves, so they may see real competitive proximity.
- Amend or narrow the identification of goods. Generally unhelpful here — the cited registration covers fruit drinks directly, so carving around them would gut the application.
- Crowded-field evidence on "SKYLINE." If many live marks share the SKYLINE term across beverage/consumable classes, that supports arguing the cited mark is weak and entitled to narrow scope.
- Rebrand / let it go. If SKYLINES' owner won't consent and the crowding evidence is thin, the realistic read is that this name is not registerable for juice products and the smart money moves to a new name.
Attorney
Two evidence pulls, and they point in opposite directions — here's the honest read.
1. The crowded-field argument is not supported — don't make it
I measured the SKYLINE landscape across Classes 32, 30 and 29: 9 live marks held by only 4 distinct owners — well below the threshold for a crowded-field argument… Arguing SKYLINES is weak because "everyone uses SKYLINE" would be unsupported by this record — and an examiner who runs the same search will see it isn't crowded.
2. The coexistence evidence is supportive — 30 pairs found
Comparing the applicant's Class 32 beverage goods universe against the cited registration's Class 30 universe, the record shows 30 same-or-similar-mark pairs registered to different owners on each side of that divide. The strongest citable exemplars:
| Shared mark | Class 32 beverage side | Other side |
|---|---|---|
| NICE! / NICE | NICE! — Reg. 4136607, Walgreen Co. — soft drinks, fruit juices, bottled water | NICE — Reg. 8286541, Nicedae Group LLC — Classes 3, 21, 30 confectionery and oral care |
| ISN'T / ISN'T | ISN'T — Reg. 6672669, Isnt Drinks LLC — non-alcoholic water-based beverages containing fruit juices | ISN'T — Reg. 6982352, Plant Meat Limited — Classes 29/30 plant-based foods and snacks |
| CHEF'S CHOICE | CHEF'S CHOICE — Reg. 4751650, Chef's Choice Foods — coconut juice, coconut water | CHEF'S CHOICE — Reg. 6617125, HBC Trading Australia — Classes 29/30 foods |
The candid caveat
There's a weakness in how this deploys against this refusal: the SKYLINES registration's own recitation covers fruit drinks and soft drinks, not generic Class 30 staples… Combined with the disclaimer of JUICE already being conceded, this is supporting material, not a cure — the direct goods overlap remains the core problem, which is why a consent agreement or rebrand stayed at the top of the options list.
Why this needs the prosecution file
A general model can explain §2(d). It can't pull an office action issued that day, identify the cited registration and its goods, work out the response deadline, and then check whether a crowded-field argument is actually available before you make it. Markus did, and told the attorney not to make the argument the register doesn't support.
Checked against the USPTO record: the Sep 27, 2026 office action refuses under §2(d) citing Reg. 6,937,972 (SKYLINES, Almassiva GmbH & Co. KG), whose goods include "non-alcoholic beverages, namely, fruit drinks and soft drinks," and requires a disclaimer of JUICE. The SKYLINE count (9 live marks, 4 owners in Classes 29, 30 and 32, not counting the applicant's own) and the coexistence pairs shown were re-checked; one pair owned by a private individual is left out, as is the registrant's counsel named in the raw session. The application is real and public; the attorney's question is invented. Editor's note: Dec 27, 2026 falls on a Sunday; under USPTO rules (37 CFR 2.196) the response is timely on Monday, Dec 28, 2026. The six-month ceiling, Mar 27, 2027, is a Saturday, so Monday, Mar 29, 2027.