Category: Trademarks

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What does TYFNIL mean?

Recently in the Design Listserv a Paris Convention question arose.  The question was, under Article 4 of the Paris Convention, could a design application claim priority from an earlier utility application?  It’s a good question and if you have any thoughts about this, I urge you to join that listserv and share your thoughts.

But what prompts this blog article is the initialism “TYFNIL”.  (It is not an acronym.)  A listserv member pointed out that even if the Office examining the design application were to find nothing wrong with such a priority claim, the owner of the design protection would never really know for sure where they stood until TYFNIL.  What does that mean?   Continue reading “What does TYFNIL mean?”

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Thirteen seats left for AIPLA Trademark Roundtable in Denver

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.

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Time of day returns to normal for US filers filing at the International Bureau

Readers will recall my blog post of two weeks ago in which I described that an American filer would (for a limited time of two weeks) have an extra hour during which to file a same-day filing at the IB.  Well, now it’s back to normal.  Now the drop-dead time for e-filing (or fax filing) is the usual 4PM (Mountain Time).

So for your PCT filing at the RO/IB, or your direct filing of a Hague Agreement design application, or your payment of a renewal for a Madrid Protocol international trademark registration, or an Article 19 amendment, or a PCT Demand … it’s back to normal.

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Learning about “wifi calling”

Today’s blog article is a “tech” article and it is a “trademarks” article. The main point of this blog article is that probably you should activate “wifi calling” on your mobile phone, if you have not already done so.

For most mobile telephone customers in the US, wifi calling has only been available for a few months. So a reader of this blog may be forgiven for having failed to activate this service before now.

What is wifi calling? Continue reading “Learning about “wifi calling””

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Filing at the International Bureau and Daylight Saving Time

It’s that time of year again.  The time of year when it is important to keep track of the fact that Daylight Saving Time is different in Switzerland from the way it is in the United States.  This is important because you might be in the US, and you might be e-filing (or fax-filing) some document with the International Bureau of WIPO. Continue reading “Filing at the International Bureau and Daylight Saving Time”

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Who is the Director of the USPTO?

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, by statute, any issued US patent or US trademark registration must be “signed by the Director”.   So the question “who is the Director?” is not an idle question.

As of today (screen shot at right), the Department of Commerce web site still lists the position of Director as “vacant”.

Yesterday’s issued US patents and US trademark registrations bore Michelle Lee’s signature, just as on Tuesdays before.

 

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Patents and trademark registrations “shall be signed by the Director”

(Corrected thanks to David Boundy, as to which Director succeeded which.)

Normally the statutory requirement that a patent issued by the USPTO, or a trademark registration certificate issued by the USPTO, “shall be signed by the Director” (35 U.S. Code § 153 and 15 U.S. Code § 1057) is sort of boring.  But just now, the USPTO expressly refuses to say who is the Director of the USPTO.  What does this mean for patents and trademark registrations that have issued on recent Tuesdays? Continue reading “Patents and trademark registrations “shall be signed by the Director””

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Would you like to attend the E-Trademarks reception in Barcelona?

Will you be in Barcelona this May at the time of the annual meeting of the International Trademark Association?  If so, maybe you would like to rub elbows with the savvy and alert people who belong to the E-Trademarks Listserv.  Maybe you would like to attend the Seventh Annual E-Trademarks Listserv reception.  To attend the reception you will need to have one of these spiffy ribbons (see at right) attached to your meeting badge.  To receive one of these spiffy ribbons, just scan the QR code in the ribbon.  Or you can click here.