Author: Carl

Readers will recall my recent blog post where my client wanted to renew a trademark registration, but my client did not want to let the Trademark Office start using a street address for postal correspondence.  My client wanted the USPTO to continue using a post office box for postal correspondence, just as the USPTO had done for the past decade.  After several months of trench warfare, the Trademark Office blinked.  The Trademark Office has given up on trying to deny our client the ability to use its post office box, and we have our renewal.  We won, but it is unfortunate that it took months of trench warfare and a lot of time and money to win. Continue reading “Trademark Office blinks on domicile address”

I dropped off a Federal Express courier package just now.  Inside is this letter to Meryl Hershkowitz, the Acting Commissioner for Trademarks.  You can track the package here.  Barring some surprise it should be delivered at the Trademark Office tomorrow (Wednesday, February 12) by 10:30 AM.

The substantive content of the letter will be no surprise to the Acting Commissioner, because I emailed a PDF of it to her yesterday as you can see here.  In other words she and her colleagues have already had twenty hours to consider the substantive content of the letter.  But what will be different when the courier package arrives tomorrow is that the Acting Commissioner and her colleagues will have an opportunity perhaps for the first time to see how many signers we ended up with (one hundred and ninety-nine) and how many trademark applications they collectively filed and/or prosecuted to issuance in the past decade (one hundred ninety thousand) and how much money they have collectively paid to the USPTO in the past decade (one hundred million dollars).

She will also see the names of the signers.  My guess is that she and her colleagues will recognize many names of trademark practitioners whom they respect and have known for many years, indeed decades.  My guess is that she and her colleagues will recognize names of law firms from which some of the signers are drawn.  

There are not words sufficient to express how honored I feel to be part of this online community of trademark practitioners who gave of their time and their energy and their professional reputations to tell the Trademark Office things that perhaps the Trademark Office did not want to hear.  

The document triggering this letter is an Examination Guide that the Trademark Office made public on the evening of last Thursday, February 6. The document revealed for the first time some measures said to be planned to take effect a mere nine days later, on Saturday, February 15.  The honor that I feel being part of this online community of trademark practitioners is only made stronger by the realization that the signers managed to accomplish this drafting and revising and finalizing and signing in a mere three days.  This leaves a few days remaining between now and February 15 during which, it is hoped, the Assistant Commissioner and her colleagues may revisit and perhaps even revise or postpone the plans set forth in the February 6 document.

Hello Colleagues.

Here is the PDF file that I emailed to Acting Director Meryl Hershkowitz earlier this evening.

And here is the email that I received back from her.

Now what needs to happen next, folks?  What needs to happen next is that an infinite number of trademark practitioners and trademark applicants need to e-sign the letter.  To do this, click here.  The opportunity to sign is open until mid-afternoon tomorrow Tuesday February 11^th.  Please consider signing.

What will happen is (hopefully) that lots of additional people will e-sign.

Carl Oppedahl

 

 

 

 

Okay, folks, the letter to the Acting Commission for Trademarks is now locked, but for correction of clear errors such as misspelled words or factual mistakes.  There is a new paragraph in the middle about the rulemaking timeline and I would be grateful if people can check it for correctness.

Anyway the point now is to round up a lot of signatures.  As of just now on Monday afternoon we have more than eighty-five signers who collectively represent about eighty-seven thousand trademark filings and prosecutions-to-issuance over ten years and who collectively represent about sixty million dollars in fees paid to the USPTO over ten years.

So let’s please have a real push now to get as many signers as possible.  Of course one cannot know for sure what might make a difference to the Acting Commissioner for Trademarks, but having a larger number of signers might make a difference.

To see the letter, and to see how to sign it, click here.

 

Hello blog readers.  I imagine readers of this blog have been following the new Examination Guide which was published just this past Thursday February 6, and which will take effect this coming Saturday February 15.  According to the Guide, starting on this coming Saturday a trademark applicant, even if represented by an attorney, will be required to disclose his or her personal email address in the US trademark application.  The email address will be published in TSDR in the “documents” tab.  This will of course get harvested by scammers and spearphishers and worse.

My best guess is that many readers would react to this with the feeling that the Trademark Office needs to mask the email addresses, just like it masks the attorney bar information.

With that in mind, an informal group of trademark practitioners is going to send a letter to the acting Commissioner this coming Tuesday evening.  She would find it on her desk on Wednesday morning.   

The point of this email is to let you know of the effort. If you would like to join the informal effort, you can.  See blog.oppedahl.com/?page_id=5405 .