A recent Law 360 story by Tiffany Hu, “Fed. Circ. Grants Atty Fees in ‘Demeaning’ Goat IP Case,” reports that the Federal Circuit ordered a New York attorney to pay legal fees after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up his challenge to a restaurant's registered trade dress that he personally found "demeaning" to goats.  In a nonprecedential order, a three-judge panel found that Queens-based attorney Todd M. Bank owes $28,523 in attorney fees to Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant & Butik in his attempt to invalidate the restaurant's trade dress for goats on a grass-covered roof.

The fee order comes after the high court in June denied a certiorari petition filed by Bank, in which he argued that the Federal Circuit incorrectly found that his personal concern that the mark was "demeaning" to goats did not give him standing to challenge the trade dress.  "What can I say when the same judges who wrongly sanctioned me proceed to ignore all of the arguments that I made in response to the defense counsel's fee application, and instead abuse their power by ruling by fiat?"  Bank, who represented himself, told Law360 in an email.

Katrina G. Hull of Markery Law LLC, an attorney for the restaurant, said in an email that she and her client were "pleased with the court's order."  Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant, which is based in Sister Bay, Wisconsin, was issued a registration in 1996 for a trade dress that "consists of goats on grass roofs," according to filings.

In 2011 and 2012, Bank petitioned to cancel the registration on behalf of a previous client, a photographer named Robert Doyle.  The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found both times that Doyle failed to establish standing, saying in 2012 that the photographer's alleged interest in "dining and shopping in such other restaurants and gift shops with goats on their roofs" was insufficient.

Bank filed the third and latest petition "as attorney and client" last October, the restaurant said.  In asking to cancel the mark, Bank argued that the mark was offensive for being "demeaning" to goats and that the registration harms the "respect, dignity and worth of animals."

But siding with the TTAB, a Federal Circuit panel in December ruled that Bank's concern for the animals did not give him standing because he had no other interest in the trade dress.  Bank was ordered to pay the restaurant's legal fees for filing a "frivolous" appeal, with the panel noting that the TTAB has thrice dismissed his petitions to cancel the trade dress for the same reason.