Why this result mattered
Functional tie
The principal comparison placed Qwen 3.8 and Claude under concealed A/B labels.
Both answers deny liability, apply the supplied confusion factors, decline Northstar Arc’s demands, preserve defenses, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill discussion without committing to permanent changes. Ordinary verification removes Answer B’s unsupported characterizations, after which both place Cirrus on the same materially safe settlement path.
Fast audit
Open the underlying record
These links open all four answers, the principal blind judgment, original prompt, and sealed key.
Prompt and sealed key
The key is an audit reference. It was not shown to the contestant systems and did not determine the comparative verdict.
Read the original matter prompt
Question 78: The NORTHSTAR ARC Demand
Your role
You represent Cirrus Array Systems after receiving a trademark demand from Northstar Arc Technologies. Draft a final response letter of no more than 700 words. Apply the supplied confusion factors, concede nothing, make no unnecessary factual commitment, preserve defenses, and propose only a controlled path to resolution.
Governing law
Assume the following trademark rules apply:
Infringement turns on likely consumer confusion regarding source, sponsorship, affiliation, or approval, assessed from the factors below as a whole.
Relevant factors include the strength of the asserted mark, similarity of the marks in appearance, sound, meaning, and overall commercial impression, relatedness of goods or services, overlap in channels and customers, purchaser care, actual confusion, and intent.
Registration supports validity and ownership but does not establish infringement. Extensive third-party use of a shared term may narrow the practical strength of that portion of a mark.
Marks are compared as encountered in the marketplace, including house marks and full composite wording, without mechanically ignoring a shared word.
Sophisticated purchasing and a lengthy, expensive sales process can reduce confusion but do not eliminate it when marks and offerings are highly similar.
Isolated inquiry or momentary uncertainty is relevant but is not conclusive actual confusion, particularly when corrected before purchase.
Good-faith independent adoption is relevant to intent but does not by itself defeat likely confusion.
A demand recipient may preserve all defenses, decline informal damages discovery, and propose a temporary standstill or targeted exchange without admitting validity, priority, confusion, intent, or liability.
A response should not threaten unsupported claims, disclose privileged naming analysis, promise permanent changes before agreement, or invite immediate litigation through unnecessary provocation.
Facts
Northstar Arc owns a federal registration for NORTHSTAR ARC for enterprise electrical-grid analytics and consulting. It claims use since 2018. Its demand states that it has spent more than $6 million marketing the mark.
Cirrus launched CIRRUS NORTHSTAR ARRAY in 2025 for hardware and software that monitor solar-farm arrays. Cirrus always displays CIRRUS as the first and largest word in its logo. Its contracts average $180,000 and ordinarily require technical demonstrations, security review, procurement review, and executive approval over four to six months.
The companies sell to some of the same energy-industry enterprises and attended one trade conference together. Northstar Arc primarily provides grid-forecasting analytics. Cirrus sells field-monitoring devices and related dashboards.
A commercial search found 46 active energy or engineering businesses using “Northstar” in a trade name or product name. The record does not establish whether those uses are legally protected or how widely customers encounter them.
One equipment vendor emailed Northstar Arc asking whether “the Cirrus Northstar booth is part of your group.” The vendor corrected its records after Cirrus supplied its full name. No customer, contract, payment, or support request has been misdirected.
Cirrus's naming file shows that a product team selected “Northstar” from a list of constellation terms and added “Array” to refer to solar arrays. The file contains no reference to Northstar Arc. Do not disclose the privileged naming file in the response.
Northstar Arc demands within five days that Cirrus stop all use, transfer its domain, disclose customers and revenue, destroy materials, and pay damages. Cirrus is willing, without admitting an obligation, to discuss consistently using the full CIRRUS NORTHSTAR ARRAY mark, distinct presentation, and market-separation measures during a 30-day standstill.
Assignment
Draft the response letter. It must:
- Acknowledge the demand without admitting validity, priority beyond the public record, infringement, or damages.
- Address the full marks, offerings, channels, purchaser care, third-party use, the isolated inquiry, and independent adoption.
- Avoid disclosing privileged material or overstating facts not established.
- Decline the domain transfer, destruction, customer list, revenue disclosure, and payment demand at this stage.
- Preserve all defenses and remedies.
- Propose a 30-day standstill and a narrowly controlled counsel discussion of presentation and market-separation measures.
- Avoid threats, provocation, permanent commitments, or language inviting broader claims.
Read the sealed key
Q78 key (Trademark Demand Response)
- The response must acknowledge receipt and investigation without admitting registration validity beyond the public record, priority, strength, likely confusion, infringement, intent, damages, or any duty to change. Missed: a demand response becomes an evidentiary admission.
- It should state the nonconceded defenses: marketplace comparison of CIRRUS NORTHSTAR ARRAY against NORTHSTAR ARC, distinct full wording and presentation, different core offerings, sophisticated $180,000 purchasing process, 46 third-party Northstar uses as potentially narrowing the shared term, one corrected vendor inquiry without transaction confusion, and no evidence of copying. Missed: the letter either ignores real overlap or overstates unproved third-party weakness.
- It must not disclose the privileged naming file or affirm facts beyond the supplied independent-adoption position. It should avoid saying the claimant's mark is invalid or weak as a conclusion. Missed: privilege or credibility is surrendered unnecessarily.
- Decline the demanded cessation, domain transfer, destruction, customer and revenue disclosure, and payment on the present record, while confirming ordinary preservation. Do not provide informal damages discovery. Missed: Cirrus gives irreversible relief before liability analysis.
- Propose a 30-day mutual standstill, no escalation or new demand deadline during it, and a counsel-only discussion of consistent full-mark use, distinct presentation, and reasonable market-separation measures, all without admission or permanent commitment. Missed: the response provokes immediate suit or binds Cirrus before reciprocal agreement.
- Preserve all defenses, counterclaims, and remedies in restrained language. Any letter within 700 words reaching these points, without threats or an invitation to broaden the dispute, satisfies the task. Missed: tone or verbosity creates a litigation event instead of controlled negotiation.
Direct judge report
The report below is preserved from the Qwen 3.8 versus Claude verdict record.
Read the preserved judge report
Basis. Both answers deny liability, apply the supplied confusion factors, decline Northstar Arc’s demands, preserve defenses, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill discussion without committing to permanent changes. Ordinary verification removes Answer B’s unsupported characterizations, after which both place Cirrus on the same materially safe settlement path.
[B] rejected: “the equipment vendor [was] not a customer” — record lacks the vendor’s customer status.
[B] rejected: customer overlap exists “as [it] would for most vendors in this industry” — record lacks industry-wide overlap facts.
[B] rejected: the isolated inquiry “is not probative actual confusion” — cited authority says otherwise.
Failed candidates. B’s express tolling and no-proceedings terms versus A’s less-defined standstill — concrete consequence failed because both merely propose negotiations and the record identifies no affected deadline or defense.
Failed candidates. B’s inquiry characterization — no safe neutralization failed because ordinary verification corrects it without changing Cirrus’s response.
Failed candidates. Different proposed presentation and market-separation topics — different conduct failed because neither answer commits Cirrus to implementing them.
Failed candidates. A’s five-day request for confirmation — concrete consequence failed because it does not accept Northstar Arc’s substantive deadline or alter Cirrus’s rights.
Failed candidates. B’s stronger house-mark and marketing-expenditure arguments — different conduct failed because both answers reach the same confusion position and response.
Hard stop. The sentence cannot be completed with a concrete, record-supported consequence.
All six pairings
Every pair of the four model answers was judged independently under the same evaluation instrument.
Open the six head-to-head results
| Pairing | Result | Why it mattered | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.8 27B vs Claude Opus 5 | Functional tie | Both answers deny liability, apply the supplied confusion factors, decline Northstar Arc’s demands, preserve defenses, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill discussion without committing to permanent changes. | Judge record |
| Qwen 3.8 27B vs DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 | Functional tie | Both answers place Cirrus on the same material path: contest likely confusion without concessions, decline the demanded transfers, disclosures, destruction, and payment, preserve defenses, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill discussion concerning presentation and market separation. | Judge record |
| Qwen 3.8 27B vs Qwen 3.5 27B | Functional tie | Both answers place Cirrus on the same material path: reject the demanded relief without admissions, preserve defenses, distinguish the marks and offerings, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill discussion. | Judge record |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 vs Claude Opus 5 | Functional tie | After ordinary verification, both letters deny liability and the demanded relief, address the required confusion factors, preserve defenses and remedies, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill with counsel discussions regarding presentation and market separation. | Judge record |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 vs Qwen 3.5 27B | Functional tie | Both answers place Cirrus on the same material path: reject the demanded remedies, preserve all defenses, contest confusion under the supplied factors, and propose a controlled 30-day standstill for counsel discussions without permanent commitments. | Judge record |
| Qwen 3.5 27B vs Claude Opus 5 | Functional tie | After ordinary verification removes unsupported or privileged-file-derived statements, both readers reject the demanded cessation, transfer, destruction, disclosures, and payment; preserve defenses; and propose a controlled 30-day standstill and counsel discussion concerning full-mark presentation and… | Judge record |
Rejected-point diagnostic
Judge-attributed rejected points for this matter across all six pairings:
| Qwen 3.8 27B | 0 |
|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 | 9 |
| Claude Opus 5 | 6 |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | 6 |
This is a review-burden diagnostic, not a universal hallucination measure.