Category: Trademarks

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USPTO is closed today – not?

See the Office of Personnel Management announcement which says:

FEDERAL OFFICES in the Washington, DC area are CLOSED. Emergency and telework-ready employees required to work must follow their agency’s policies, including written telework agreements.

I wrote:

The USPTO is closed today, Friday, March 2, 2018.

Normally at this time of year such a closure would be due to a dusting of snow.  But the reason for the closure is “high wind”.

Oh, and at the risk of stating the obvious, this means that any response or action that would have been due today will be timely if filed by this coming Monday, March 5, 2018.

But people are telling me they think the USPTO is actually open today.  If this is true, then maybe the resetting of response dates to Monday won’t happen after all.

I will investigate further.

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Get your numbers in for the 2017 US trademark registration toteboard

It’s that time of year again.  A year ago we published the 2016 US Trademark Registration Tote Board and before that, the 2015 US Trademark Registration Tote Board.  Now it’s time to get your numbers in for the third annual US Trademark Registration Tote Board.

The goal of this toteboard is to list the firms that helped clients obtain US trademark registrations in 2017.  The toteboard seeks to list US trademark registrations granted in 2017.    The closing date for the questionnaire will be Thursday, March 8, 2018.

You can see the previous Toteboards here.

To learn more and to report your numbers for the 2017 US Trademark Registration tote board, please click here.

It is also time to report your numbers for the 2017 US Design Patent tote board and the 2017 US Utility Patent tote board.

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USPTO will not shut down

https://www.uspto.gov/uspto-operating-status

Here is what the USPTO says:

While activities across much of the federal government ceased at 12:01 a.m. January 20, 2018, due to a lack of appropriated funding, the USPTO remains operational.

This is possible because the agency has access to prior year fee collections, which enables the USPTO to continue normal operations for a few weeks. Should the USPTO exhaust these funds before a government shutdown comes to an end, the agency would have to shut down at that time, although a very small staff would continue to work to accept new applications and maintain IT infrastructure, among other functions.

Further information regarding any adjustments to the USPTO’s operating status during a federal government shutdown will be posted on the USPTO website and delivered to the news media.

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Is someone tampering with your US trademark registrations?

Erik Pelton
Erik Pelton

One of the smartest trademark practitioners in the US is Erik Pelton.  Erik regularly shares his knowledge and experience on the E-Trademarks listserv and on his blog.  He is a long-standing sponsor of Meet the Bloggers.  Here is something that he posted on the listserv the other day:

I recently came across a peculiar situation for the first time:  a person not affiliated with Applicant filed a correspondence change with the USPTO via TEAS. The only change was to add an additional email address to the record. They did this just before the registration issued.

My guess is that they were trying to game the Amazon Brand Registry system, which I believe automatically generates a link sent to the trademark registration email address(es) of record when creating a new account.

I filed via TEAS to change the correspondence to remove the email; and then the same email address was used to do it a second time. To add to the issue, the email address used is from a secure private email domain (tutanota.com).

My client and I have reached out the USPTO (who has responded quickly, I am pleased to share!) and to Amazon to warn them about this. I suspect it has happened to others who may not be aware.

If anyone has any additional information or experience about this issue, please share.

I had never heard of this until Erik posted this to the listserv.  Prompted by Erik’s posting I surfed around a bit to try to learn what might be going on.  I actually signed up for the Amazon Brand Registry and I can confirm that the trademark hijacking risk that Erik described does exist.  Here is what I learned. Continue reading “Is someone tampering with your US trademark registrations?”

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Time returns to normal for WIPO filings

As I reported a week ago, the usual autumn thing happened with time zones.  A week ago Europe “fell back” with daylight saving time.

Now today the US also “fell back”.

For the past week, US filers had an extra hour available to get a same-day filing date for filings at WIPO.  A US filer could file as late as 5PM (Mountain Time) instead of the usual 4PM, and get a same-day filing date.

Now it is back to normal.  The time of day to keep in mind is once again 4PM Mountain Time.

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Ethics CLE webinar for intellectual property

I’ll be offering a webinar about intellectual property ethics.  It is accredited for ethics credit CLE in California and Colorado.  You can read about it here.  Attendees will receive a Certificate of Attendance which might get you CLE credit in other states if you are lucky.

Those who are subscribed to this blog may use coupon code “blog17” between now and November 6 to get a $20 discount on this program.

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For the next week, an extra hour available for WIPO filings

Filers in the Patent Cooperation Treaty, Madrid Protocol, and Hague Agreement systems (utility patents, trademarks, and industrial designs) know that it is important to keep always in mind when midnight will arrive in Geneva, where WIPO is located.

For a PCT filer, this matters because to get a same-day filing date, a PCT application being filed in RO/IB will (usually) need to be filed by 4 PM Mountain Time.  The same is true for filing an Article 19 amendment.  The same is true if you are using ePCT to file a Demand and Article 34 amendment.

For a Madrid filer, this matters among other things for the payment of decade renewal fees.

For a Hague filer, this matters for the the filing of an international design application at the IB.

The point of today’s post is that starting yesterday, and for the next week, you get an extra hour to get a same-day filing date.  The reason is that Europe and the US carry out their daylight saving time transitions on different days that are a week apart.

This means that you could file as late as 5 PM Mountain Time (instead of the usual 4 PM) and still get a same-day filing date.

Things will return to normal a week from now, on November 5, 2016.

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How long it takes USPTO to issue a Certificate of Registration?

How long does it take the Trademark Office at the USPTO to issue a Certificate of Registration?  That is to say, once an opposition period has concluded with nobody having filed opposition, how much time goes by before the USPTO actually grants the registration?  Is it sometimes slower?  Sometimes faster?  The amount of delay turns out to be extremely predictable.

 

 

Continue reading “How long it takes USPTO to issue a Certificate of Registration?”