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<p>See also
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://blog.oppedahl.com/trademark-office-cant-handle-its-own-characters/">https://blog.oppedahl.com/trademark-office-cant-handle-its-own-characters/</a><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/3/2024 6:33 AM, Ken Boone via
E-trademarks wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:SN6PR14MB22375555A7B9BF8267A6A68AD5362@SN6PR14MB2237.namprd14.prod.outlook.com">
<div class="elementToProof">
I'm still reviewing updated trademark records for unexpected
occurrences of the ? (question mark) for standard characters
occurring in the wordmarks. The USPTO is making progress for
handling Unicode characters occurring in new TEAS filings, but
some inconsistencies continue to occur.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
Consider 98873773, filed Nov. 26, 2024.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<u><img
alt="previously viewed
Image for 98873773, select for more details"
moz-do-not-send="true"></u></div>
<div>
<div class="elementToProof">
I</div>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<span>It is pretty obvious that some non-standard characters
occur in the trademark. The current wordmark on TSDR and
Trademark Search is
</span><span><b>? ???E?</b></span><span>, pretty much
confirming that some non-standard characters occur in the
literal element provided in the application. But the
description of mark, namely</span></div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
The mark consists of the image of Russian characters "\u0411\u0410\u0421E\u0414".
The image appears with a stylized "\u042f" resembling the Cyrillic
character for 'Ya' in a circle to the right and a star appears
over the letter "E".</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
includes a more accurate depiction of the characters occurring
in the trademark. Well, here's a contradiction. Viewing the
raw application on TSDR, the description of mark appears as (<span>highlighting</span> mine)</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
The mark consists of the image of Russian characters "<span>???</span>E<span>?</span>".
The image appears with a stylized "<span>?</span>" resembling
the Cyrillic character for 'Ya' in a circle to the right and a
star appears over the letter "E".</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
where multiple characters appear as the ? question mark
character. I'm thinking that this is a TSDR blemish - that the
TSDR display of the raw application fails to properly display
some of the Unicode characters provided in the raw
application. </div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
This description of mark inconsistency leads me to believe that
<span>
<b>\u042f \u0411\u0410\u0421E\u0414</b></span> was provided as the wordmark, but that
USPTO wordmark processing converted that wordmark to
<span><b>? ???E?</b></span>, leading to an obvious question:
Shouldn't initial wordmark processing preserve the Unicode
characters occurring in the wordmark, versus the current
conversion of Unicode character to the
<b>?</b> (question mark) character?</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
Another example: 98866013, filed Nov. 21, 2024.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<u><img
alt="previously viewed
Image for 98866013, select for more details"
moz-do-not-send="true"></u></div>
<div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
Again, it is pretty obvious that some non-standard characters
occur in the trademark. The current wordmark is
<span><b>XENTRALINKS ??</b></span>, but the description of mark
on TSDR is</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
The mark consists of The literal element of the mark contains
the words "XENTRALINKS \u69ab\u9470". The non-Latin characters in the mark
transliterate to Shun Yeuk in Chinese and this means "wooden
key" in English.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
Again, USPTO processing of the wordmark apparently converted the
Unicode characters
<span><b>\u69ab\u9470</b></span> to <span>
<b>??</b></span>.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
For more examples, consider trying the search</div>
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<br>
</div>
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WD:/.*\?\?.*/ AND LD:true AND FD:[20241101 TO 20241130]</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
that retrieves 15 trademarks filed last month with at least 2
consecutive occurrences of the question mark character in the
wordmark.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof">
BTW, when Pre-Exam gets around to performing their initial
processing on these November filings, they'll likely delete the
unexpected question marks from the wordmark entries, versus
substituting the Unicode characters appearing in the description
of mark entries to the wordmark. So it goes.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div id="Signature" class="elementToProof">
<div>
Happy Trademarking,</div>
<div>
Ken Boone</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
PS: I currently have a list of about 270 live trademarks with
unexpected occurrences of ? for standard characters in the
wordmark. That is, some legacy problems for wordmark entries
still have not been corrected. (There are also some \u20ac
inconsistencies, including some wordmarks where the string
EURO occurs where the \u20ac is evident is the drawing.)</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
PPS: You might try the search <span><b>DE:( *\u69ab* *\u9470* *\u042f* *\u0411*
\u0414*)</b></span> as you'll notice that Trademark Search
allows for search some Unicode characters. Also consider the
standard character \u0101 with decimal value 257. Try the wildcard
search <span><b>WD:( *\u0101* )</b></span>, where you probably
expect that search would find any occurrence of the letter A
in wordmarks, but ...</div>
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<br>
</div>
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