Bluesky: @oppedahl.com
The USPTO registered about three times as many trademarks today as it would on a usual Tuesday, as may be seen at right. This is a consequence of the “down the memory hole” activity of the Trademark Office on May 10, 2022 (blog article and blog article and blog article). Continue reading “A big registration day at the Trademark Office”
Hello dear readers. It will be recalled that on April 26, 2022, 42 PCT patent practitioners from the PCT Listserv signed and sent a letter to USPTO Director Kathi Vidal. The letter (click here to see it) has eight “asks” relating to the Patent Cooperation Treaty. As you can see here, what was really quite encouraging was that a mere two minutes later, Director Vidal responded, saying:
Thank you for reaching out on this … . I appreciate it. I will review it shortly. Kathi.
The part of the USPTO that is in charge of stuff like this is called International Patent Legal Administration (IPLA). A couple of days ago, the phone rang and it was a very nice fellow named Stefanos Karmis, who is the acting director of IPLA. He let me know that Director Vidal has asked him to be the point person on getting back to us on this letter. He asked if I could meet with him by telephone to discuss our “asks”. He and I have set a date of June 2 for a telephone call about this. This is, obviously, an encouraging development and we will want to do what we can to make the most of this telephone call, and whatever might come after that.
Here are some of the things that have taken place as part of preparing for the June 2 telephone call.
We have set up a private listserv for the 42 signers of the letter, so that we can discuss and prepare.
We have set up a Gotomeeting for May 26 for the 42 signers of the letter, so that we can discuss and prepare.
The other 900 or so members of the PCT Listserv who did not sign the letter (now I imagine some are wishing they had gotten off their behinds and signed the letter!) have been invited to get in touch with whichever of the 42 signers they are best acquainted with, to discuss and prepare. There may also be discussions on the PCT Listserv itself for discussions as we lead up to the June 2 phone call.
Executive summary: the other day I checked my lug nuts, assuming that they would all be nice and tight just like they always have been over the course of many years, any time that I have ever gone to the trouble of checking my lug nuts. And I was gobsmacked to find that one of my lug nuts was loose enough that it could be turned using one’s fingers. Yes, as soon as I realized it was loose, I tightened it to the desired number of foot-pounds. But it sure was a good thing that I checked my lug nuts!
The main point of this blog article being, of course you should check your lug nuts. Continue reading “Are your lug nuts tight?”
(Updated, see below, to report events at the Trademark Office on May 24, 2022. Yes I correctly predicted several aspects of what eventually did happen on May 24, 2022, as seen in the updates below.)
Well, folks, the USPTO has sort of vaguely and indirectly half-answered what happened last week with the 6001 US trademark registration numbers that were communicated to applicants and then got sent down the memory hole (blog article and blog article). The explanation, such as it is, is that there was “a recent paper vendor disruption”. Continue reading “Trademark Office memory hole activity explained”
In a previous blog article, I described that the Trademark Office has tried to flush down the memory hole all traces of the 6001 US trademark registration numbers that it communicated to its customers on May 10, 2022. And indeed right now, the registration numbers themselves, and the registration date, have gotten scrubbed out from where they were previously stored in TSDR and in TESS.
But the Trademark Office slipped up. As of today, the XML data that it provides for those 6001 trademark applications continues to report a “status code” of 700, which means “registered”, and a “status text” of “REGISTERED”, which of course means registered.
To do a thorough job of scrubbing away evidence of its big mistake of May 10, the Trademark Office would also need to restore the “status code” to whatever it was before May 10.
I have loaded the 6001 cases into my IP Badger. If and when the USPTO manages to scrub the “status code 700” information, I will see it.
(Update: the 6001 customers did eventually get their registration numbers back two weeks later, on May 24, 2022. See blog article.)
(USPTO published an explanation of sorts. Blog article.)
Orwell’s 1984 imagines a dystopian future with a “memory hole”, which Wikipedia defines as
any mechanism for the deliberate alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.
The morning of Tuesday, May 10, 2022 seemed like an ordinary Tuesday morning for trademark practitioners in the US. Just like any other Tuesday, about six thousand US trademarks got registered. But by Tuesday afternoon it became clear that this was no ordinary Tuesday. By today (Friday the 13th), we see that the Trademark Office has gone down the memory hole, and has “disappeared” six thousand and one US trademark registrations. Continue reading “Trademark Office goes down the memory hole”
I decided to try to monitor a sump pit. This is how the project stands as of now.
The tenth e-Trademarks listserv reception took place as scheduled on Tuesday, May 3 in Washington, DC. Listserv member Matt Curran has shared a couple of photographs that he took during the reception. Continue reading “A successful tenth e-Trademarks listserv reception!”
(Updated to report that the nice people at WIPO received the poster. blog article.)
The e-Trademarks listserv reception took place as scheduled on Tuesday, May 3. About seventy people attended. I am delighted to report that two nice people from the Madrid Protocol part of WIPO attended the listserv. We greeted them with an 18 inch by 22 inch (46 cm by 56 cm) poster with a “wish list”. It was signed by about 41 of the listserv members. I will be mailing the poster to our WIPO colleagues. Here are the WIPO people and here is the “wish list”: Continue reading “Nice people from WIPO attended e-Trademarks listserv reception”
On Tuesday, May 10, 2022, the European Patent Office will present a US-specific webinar on PCT topics. Every US practitioner and paralegal who does PCT work should attend. This webinar is free of charge. Continue reading “EPO webinar on PCT for US paralegals and practitioners”