The Federal Court has dismissed Pharma Cosmetic Laboratories Ltd.’s appeal of a decision refusing to register SUNBRELLA for cosmetic sun-protecting preparations, leaving intact a finding of confusion with Glen Raven Inc.’s trademarks for fabrics used in shade products.
In Pharma Cosmetic Laboratories Ltd. v. Glen Raven Inc., 2026 FC 1224, released October 2, Justice Allyson Whyte Nowak found no error warranting intervention in the Trademarks Opposition Board’s analysis. She awarded Glen Raven $9,095.56 in costs and disbursements.
The dispute concerned registration of the applicant’s trademark. The court did not decide an infringement claim or order any product removed from the market.
A connection beyond protection from the sun
Pharma Cosmetic Laboratories, referred to in the reasons as PCL, sought registration for goods including non-medicated sun-protecting cosmetics and facial foundation containing sun-protecting compositions. Glen Raven opposed the application, relying on its SUNBRELLA word and design marks.
The board focused on Glen Raven’s SUNBRELLA & Design registration, TMA781,838. Its registered goods include fabrics sold by the piece for making awnings, sun and wind screens, canopies, beach umbrellas and other products.
PCL argued that the board had improperly treated a fabric registration as extending to finished shade products. The judge rejected that characterization. The registration expressly identified the products for which the fabrics were intended, and the board understood that distinction.
The board had found that a shared sun-protection function alone would be too weak a connection to establish confusion. It nevertheless identified a closer relationship: consumers typically use sunscreen at the same time as shade products made with fabrics that display Glen Raven’s marks.
Whyte Nowak held that this finding was available on the evidence. The board had not applied an automatic rule that products used together must be related. Rather, it assessed their common function, typical use together and the branding visible to consumers.
Different sales channels did not resolve the issue
PCL also challenged the board’s reliance on Glen Raven’s branding on goods made by other manufacturers. The judge pointed to evidence about hang tags and sewn-in tags, Canadian licensees, and licence provisions allowing Glen Raven to audit and approve uses of its marks and products made from its fabrics.
That evidence supported the board’s treatment of the branding. The court also rejected PCL’s position that the relevant consumer was necessarily a manufacturer buying fabric. For the confusion analysis in this case, the judge identified a consumer buying PCL’s sunscreen with an imperfect recollection of Glen Raven’s design mark.
The board had already recognized that the parties’ sales channels did not overlap and weighed that factor in PCL’s favour. But different channels did not prevent it from finding a relationship between the goods themselves.
The board also considered Glen Raven’s distribution of branded sunscreen as promotional items in the United States. The reasons expressly noted the absence of evidence of such distribution in Canada. The court found no reversible error in considering the U.S. promotion as evidence bearing on the relationship between fabrics and sunscreen preparations.
Appeal dismissed with costs
The board had assessed the likelihood of confusion as, at best for PCL, approximately even. The different sales channels and PCL’s slightly longer demonstrated period of use were insufficient to tip that assessment in its favour, given the nearly identical marks and relationship between the goods.
Because PCL had to establish that its mark was registrable, that assessment was enough to defeat its application. Its challenge to the separate non-distinctiveness ground depended on the same alleged flaws in the confusion analysis, and the court found no basis to intervene on that ground either.
The judgment dismissed the appeal and left the board’s November 27, 2025 refusal in place.
