Category: Trademarks

If you only attend two events in Barcelona during the INTA meeting, these are the two events to attend … Continue reading “If you only attend two events in Barcelona …”

(Updated to include screen shot from USPTO’s dashboard, thanks to Ken Boone.)

The post-registration branch at the USPTO — the group of people whose job it is to look at a six-year renewal or a ten-year renewal — sure is slow sometimes.

We have one where we filed our renewal on March 22, 2017.  The post-reg people accepted it on May 9, 2017 (which is what prompted today’s blog post).  Actually that was only six or seven weeks which was faster than many cases.  We had one recently that took almost five months to get looked at.  We filed the renewal on October 18, 2016 and it did not get looked at until April 4, 2017.

The problem of course is that if post-reg takes five months to look at a renewal, and if post-reg finds some real or imagined flaw in the renewal papers, then there is precious little time to try to straighten things out.  In this case with the delay of almost five months, the post-reg person bounced the renewal because of a flaw that was merely imagined, not real.  We argued with the post-reg person, but we had our backs against the wall because the renewal window was going to expire in just a few days.  Fortunately the post-reg person withdrew the bounce.  But still this forced the client to endure uncertainty for almost five months, for no good reason.

It sure will be good when the USPTO gets the post-reg branch back to normal.

The very handy “maintenance” tab in TSDR that had been missing for the past year or so … the very welcome and good news is that this “maintenance” tab is back! Continue reading “TSDR Maintenance tab is back!”

There are four seats left for the USPTO trademark roundtable in Denver on Friday, April 21.  This is a unique opportunity to talk face-to-face with important people from the trademark office at the USPTO, including:

• Meryl Hershkowitz, Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations, and
• Wendy Cohen, Interlocutory Attorney, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

You will also get to meet important people from the Denver regional patent office, including Molly Kocialski, the Director of the office.

For more information, see the USPTO web site page for the roundtable here.  Don’t get left out.  Register today.

The place and time for Meet the Bloggers XIII is now set.  Perhaps the best non-INTA event ever devised by woman or man, MTB XIII will be held on Monday, May 22^nd, 7:30 – 9:30 PM, at Xup Xup in Barcelona (map). Come and meet some of the best trademark attorneys in the world, and while you’re at it say hello to the sponsors of this year’s event.

To learn more or to RSVP, click here.

It will be recalled that AIPLA is hosting a free-of-charge trademark roundtable at the Denver patent office.  Two very important people from the Trademark Office will be there — Meryl Hershkowitz, the Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations, and Wendy Cohen, Interlocutory Attorney for the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.  This is a rare and unique opportunity to talk face-to-face with Trademark Office people about issues that are important to you as a trademark applicant or practitioner.

Only thirteen seats remain open for this roundtable.  If you want to attend, now is the time to register.  You can see the event page here on the USPTO web site.

This is your opportunity to participate in a face-to-face AIPLA roundtable with leaders from the trademark office at the USPTO.  The free-of-charge roundtable will take place April 21 at the Denver patent office.  A free breakfast will be provided by Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC.  For more information, and to register, click here.