Whether a court may find joint ownership of a trademark between competing entities without violating the Lanham Act's requirement of a single source of goods or services

Petitioner Zioness Movement, Inc. is a nonprofit entity that is the registered owner of the Zioness word mark. Amanda Berman, the founder of Zioness Movement, Inc., began using the Zioness mark while she was still employed at a separate nonprofit entity, Respondent The Lawfare Project, Inc. After the mark was registered to Zioness Movement, The Lawfare Project sought to cancel Zioness Movement’s registered mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Zioness Movement sought a declaration of ownership in the district court and The Lawfare Project counterclaimed seeking a declaration of ownership. The district court determined that both Zioness Movement and The Lawfare Project co-owned the mark—an outcome never contemplated in the litigation or argued for by either party during trial. The court of appeals, in a summary order, affirmed the district court on this issue, finding that Zioness Movement “cannot establish the ‘fundamental error’ required to reverse after its waiver of any objection to the verdict form permitting a finding of co-ownership.” The questions presented are: 1. Whether, under the Lanham Act, a court or jury may find joint ownership of a trademark between competing entities—neither of which pleaded or proved co-ownership— without violating the fundamental principle that a trademark must indicate a single source of goods or services to consumers. ii 2. Whether a party that does not object to a verdict sheet that includes “both” as a potential response to the question of ownership has waived the legal argument that joint ownership of a trademark by two entities that compete in the same market, without any guardrails to protect against consumer confusion, violates the Lanham Act. 3. Whether the district court was required to instruct the jury to consider which entity used the trademark in a source-identifying way, and whether the district court erred by instructing the jury to consider the scope of Amanda Berman’s employment but failing to instruct the jury that a purported transfer of trademark rights via a naked or oral license effects an abandonment.