click to go to TransferWise web site
I have a prediction to make. My prediction is that within a year or two, every patent and trademark firm around the world that has a substantial international practice will have a TransferWise account. What prompts me to predict this? Continue reading
Readers will recall my postings here and here and here about the Trademark Office’s recent Examination Guideline requiring trademark applicants to reveal to the public where they sleep at night.
Within recent weeks (see my blog post of December 29, 2019) I have filed petitions in some of my cases asking that the applicant be permitted to withhold this information from the public for reasons of personal privacy and safety.
I was dismayed to hear in the e-Trademarks listserv from a practitioner who reports that he filed such a petition on September 13, 2019 in one of his cases, and he recently telephoned the Office of Trademark Petitions to ask the status of his petition. He says he was told that there are many such petitions, and they are all “on hold”, and that we should not expect decisions on such petitions any time soon.
Have you had to deal with this? Have you filed such a petition? Was it granted? Please post a comment below.
On November 18, 2019 I posted this blog article reporting the quite remarkable news that IP Australia had joined the DAS system for purposes of trademarks. Even now in January 2020 no other Office is a member of DAS for purposes of trademarks. In that blog article I proved to you that IP Australia must really be an Accessing Office for purposes of trademarks, and I did it by posting an actual Certificate of Availability from the DAS system, showing that US trademark application number 77087422 is available to IP Australia through the DAS system. But more than a month has passed during which no trademark practitioner raised the following questions:
If you somehow figure out or already know the answers to questions 1-3, please post a comment below. In doing so, you will gain recognition as a truly trendy, modern, and up-to-date trademark practitioner.
Back on about November 17 we migrated our listserv server from a shared-hosting server to a dedicated server. This means that our listserv postings are coming from a different IP address now than they used to.
It seems that some email service providers have hair-trigger spam fighting systems that react in a very strong way to email traffic emanating from a new IP address. Some of the members of our listservs have have found that some or even all of our listserv messages are failing to reach them.
if this has happened to you, there are several things that you can do to help. Continue reading
It’s that time of year again. Get your numbers in if you want your firm to be listed in:
These Tote Boards will rank the top patent and trademark firms for carrying out filings in 2019 in these categories. The 2019 Tote Boards will join the previous fifteen Tote Boards which go back as far as 2012.
The closing date for getting in your numbers will be Friday, January 31, 2020.
Every year, some firm misses out by failing to get its numbers in by the closing date. Don’t be that firm! Get your numbers in early. Click here for the:
Wednesday, January 1, 2020 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia. This means the USPTO will be closed. This means that any action that would be due at the USPTO on January 1 will be timely if it is done by Thursday, January 2, 2020.
Back on September 24th (blog article) a very high-up person in the Office of the Commissioner for Trademarks had telephoned me, promising me that Real Soon Now the Trademark Office would issue yet another Exam Guideline, doing the right thing about post office boxes. Unfortunately that has not happened. Trademark practitioners are starting to receive super-intrusive Office Actions demanding things like revealing the personal home addresses of clients. What can be done about all of this? Continue reading
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Today is the day. As of today, a trademark owner in Malaysia can file a Madrid Protocol application to pursue protection in one or more Offices outside of Malaysia. Starting today, a trademark owner outside of Malaysia can file a Subsequent Designation to Malaysia (or can file a new Madrid Protocol application designating Malaysia).
The two-letter code for Malaysia is “MY”.
Nowadays when the time comes to do a six-year or ten-year renewal of a US trademark registration, I find that I often need to spend a lot of extra professional time explaining to the client why I feel we need to have lots of extra specimens of use. And I find I often need to spend a lot of extra professional time explaining to the client why I feel we need to work harder than ever before on canceling goods and services from the registration as part of the renewal process. I’ll explain why this is. Continue reading
It was already known (blog post) that Wednesday, December 25, 2019 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia. Today’s news is that in addition, by order of the President, the federal government will be closed on Tuesday, December 24. This means the USPTO will be closed not only on December 25 but also on December 24. This means that any action that would be due at the USPTO on December 24 or 25 will be timely if it is done by Thursday, December 26, 2019.