EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center

The executive summary is that the USPTO developers of Trademark Center made a big mistake in the coding of the priority claims in a trademark application — they failed to provide EUIPO and Benelux as trademark offices in which a priority application might have been filed.  In doing so, they failed to learn from the identical mistake that had been made by the USPTO developers of Patent Center, who had failed to provide EPO and OAPI and ARIPO and EAPO as patent offices in which a priority application might have been filed. 

Readers will recall the mistake that the USPTO developers of Patent Center made back in 2020 (blog article), namely failing to provide a way to claim priority from EPO and three more regional patent offices.  It took the developers half a year to fix that mistake, after I reported it.

It was clear in the case of Patent Center that the developers just clicked around on the Internet for some list of “all of the countries in the world” or maybe “all of the places you could use in a mailing addess”, and copied and pasted that list into the line of code that generated the drop-down list of would-be priority Offices.  Of course the developers of Patent Center, who promised that they were going to replicate all of the functions and features of EFS-Web, should have done a simple code review of that part of EFS-Web and would have seen that the drop-down list included some places that are not countries.  The European Patent Office, for example, is not a country.  But the developers of Patent Center had no clue that the EPO is not a country, or that a customer of the USPTO might need to claim priority from the EPO.

Now it turns out that the USPTO developers of Trademark Center made the exact same mistake.  Apparently within the USPTO, nothing was learned from this mistake in Patent Center.   The developers of Trademark Center just clicked around on the Internet for some list of “all of the countries in the world” or maybe “all the places where you can send mail” and copied and pasted that list into the line of code that generates the drop-down lists of would-be Offices for a 44d or 44e filing basis.   Of course the developers of Trademark Center, who represent to us that they are supposedly replicating all of the functions and features of TEAS, should have done a simple code review of that part of TEAS and would have seen that the drop-down list included some places that are not countries.  The European Union Intellectual Property Office, for example, is not a country.  But the developers of Trademark Center have no clue that the EUIPO is not a country, or that a customer of the USPTO might need to list EUIPO as a 44d or 44e filing office.

The USPTO developers also failed to provide the Benelux trademark office.

How do I know that the developers of Trademark Center just clicked around on the Internet for some list of “all of the countries in the world” or maybe “all the places where you can send mail” and copied and pasted that list into the place where they should have provided a list of trademark offices?  One way I know this is that one of the purported trademark offices is “Antarctica”.   I promise you that there is no “Antarctica Trademark Office”.  But there it is in the drop-down list.  Indeed here are thirty-five places that the developers of Trademark Center included in their drop-down list of purported trademark offices, that do not have a trademark office in which trademark applications may be filed:

1. 1. 1. Aland Islands
      2. Antarctica
      3. Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba
      4. Bouvet Island
      5. British Indian Ocean Territory
      6. Christmas Island
      7. Cocos (Keeling) Islands
      8. Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
      9. Faroe Islands
      10. French Guiana
      11. French Polynesia
      12. French Southern Territories
      13. Gibraltar
      14. Guadeloupe
      15. Guernsey
      16. Heard Island and Mcdonald Islands
      17. Isle of Man
      18. Jersey
      19. Martinique
      20. Mayotte
      21. Micronesia, Federated States of
      22. Montserrat
      23. New Caledonia
      24. Norfolk Island
      25. Paracel Islands
      26. Pitcairn
      27. Reunion
      28. Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
      29. Saint Pierre and Miquelon
      30. Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
      31. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
      32. Svalbard and Jan Mayen
      33. Tokelau
      34. Virgin Islands, British
      35. Wallis and Futuna

Let’s see how long it takes for the USPTO developers to correct their list of purported trademark offices in Trademark Center.  And let’s see if the USPTO developers do me the courtesy of letting me know when they have corrected the list.