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<p>I can imagine that there may be one or two countries that
literally do not have a trademark office. <br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/24/2024 7:46 AM, Kevin Grierson
via E-trademarks wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">And wouldn’t a “list of all countries”
potentially include countries that are not members of the
Paris Convention or other treaty with the US, and thus
ineligible for a grant of trademark registration under Section
44? (I confess that I’m not aware of any particular country
that would be ineligible under this standard).<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
E-trademarks
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:e-trademarks-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com"><e-trademarks-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com></a>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Carl Oppedahl via E-trademarks<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, July 24, 2024 6:50 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> for trademark practitioners
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:e-trademarks@oppedahl-lists.com"><e-trademarks@oppedahl-lists.com></a><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Carl Oppedahl <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:carl@oppedahl.com"><carl@oppedahl.com></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [E-trademarks] three defects in
Trademark Center<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span
style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:white">EXTERNAL
EMAIL<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p>For a second time now I have attempted to use Trademark
Center instead of the more usual TEAS for the preparation of
a US trademark application.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>For a second time, so far as I can see, Trademark Center is
unusable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>For a second time, I have been forced to go back to TEAS.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Here are the three defects that blocked my ability to use
Trademark Center today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>First, a false statement in the web-based system as to a
requirement about actual use for a 44e filing basis:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>Identify goods and services for Section 44(e)<br>
You must be using the trademark in commerce for all the
goods and services listed in your application.<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I believe that it is false to say that in an application
with a 44e filing basis, it is required that the applicant
"be using the trademark in commerce for all the goods and
services listed in your application." Instead, the law
requires nothing more than a <i>bona fide</i> intention to
use the trademark in commerce for all the goods and services
listed in the application.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Second, when the time came to enter the details of the 44e
filing basis, so far as I could see it is impossible to set
forth that the filing basis is a registration
<b><i>granted by the European Union Intellectual Property
Office</i></b>. So I was forced to go back to TEAS
since TEAS does recognize EUIPO as a selection for the 44e
office of earlier filing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>This is a sad repeat of a blunder made by the developers of
Patent Center. With Patent Center as released, it was
impossible to claim priority from a prior application filed
in EPO (or in any other regional patent office). It was
clear in the case of Patent Center that the developers
stupidly just clicked around on the Internet for some list
of "all of the countries in the world" 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
<b><i>that are not countries</i></b>. The European Patent
Office 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.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>It took some weeks but eventually the developers of Patent
Center paid attention to our bug report from the Patent
Center listserv, and they fixed their mistake.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>So here, too, what has apparently happened is the
developers of Trademark Center stupidly just clicked around
on the Internet for some list of "all of the countries in
the world" and copied and pasted that list into the line of
code that generates the drop-down list of would-be Offices
for a 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 <b><i>that are not countries</i></b>. The
European Union Intellectual Property Office 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 44e filing office.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>I did not trouble myself to go and look but I assume the
developers of Trademark Center made the same blunder for the
drop-down list of would-be 44d filing Offices.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The third defect in Trademark Center is the failure to
provide all of the relevant entity types in the relevant
drop-down list.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>In TEAS, when we get to "the entity is a non-US entity",
what happens next is that we get a drop-down list of non-US
entity types. On that drop-down list is, for example,
"Société à responsabilité limitée" (initialized as "SARL").
The drop-down list has some seventy or so types of non-US
entity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>In TEAS, we have been begging for years that the drop-down
list for no-US entity types would have a first selection for
the non-US country, and then based on this selection of
country, we would
<b><i>subsequently </i></b>be given a drop-down list of the
entity types <b><i>for that country</i></b>. I imagine now
that Trademark Center is in front of us, we will never get
this wish for TEAS because probably TEAS has one foot in the
grave.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>But I digress. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>In Trademark Center, once the filer clicks to say that the
entity type is a non-US entity, the drop-down list fails to
provide "Société à responsabilité limitée". The drop-down
list also fails to provide about sixty-eight other types of
non-US entity. Instead, the filer is forced to enter
"Société à responsabilité limitée" into a free-form data
field.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>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 for non-US entity types included <b><i>some
seventy entity types.</i></b> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Instead this particular defect in Trademark Center is going
to lead to endless opportunities for random variations in
the stated non-US entity type. We will see filers who
capitalize some letters and not others. We will see filers
who enter the accent characters and others who do not enter
the accent characters. We will see filers who enter an
acute accent as a grave accent and vice versa. There will,
henceforth, be no consistency at all in the entries for
non-US entity types.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>I invite comments from listserv members on these three
defect reports. Maybe for each of the defects as reported,
it is not really a defect because I missed some detail of
Trademark Center. Maybe for one or more of the defects as
reported, there is some workaround that I missed.<o:p></o:p></p>
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