<div dir="auto">Well I've been outed ...<div dir="auto"><br><div dir="auto">As for Unicode, it definitely supports all the major scripts and many many smaller ones, and has for many years. And it has been implemented in virtually all significant commercial software. But it seems that the USPTO and other TM offices use custom software that has not implemented the Unicode standard.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Anne</div><div dir="auto"><a href="http://www.unicode.org">www.unicode.org</a></div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 12:26\u202fAM Pamela Chestek via E-trademarks <<a href="mailto:e-trademarks@oppedahl-lists.com">e-trademarks@oppedahl-lists.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
As a fun factoid, Anne Gundelfinger, president of INTA many, many
years ago, is the general counsel and vice president of the Unicode
Consortium. Small world.<br>
<br>
Pam<br>
<br>
<div>Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS<br>
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<br>
</div>
<div>On 4/16/2025 2:00 AM, Carl Oppedahl via
E-trademarks wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p>Thank you Ken for posting.</p>
<p>I have several reactions to this.</p>
<p>First, Ken's postings in the past few months about character
coding have prompted me personally to try to learn about
Unicode. It is a fascinating world, this Unicode. As time goes
on, I must imagine that trademark offices around the world will
eventually gain familiarity with Unicode. The result,
eventually, will be better ways of searching, and better ways of
storing mark information for searching. And better ways of
receiving trademark applications in the first place, with
applicants providing Unicode representations of marks rather
than mere images of marks. <br>
</p>
<p>Second, Ken's postings have laid bare the many ways in which
Trademark Center (and USPTO's other related internal systems for
trademark application workflow) have failed to keep pace with
Unicode. Yes it is one thing if, within recent days, the USPTO
coders belatedly started to check to see if the "mark" field in
an application is or is not composed solely of "standard
characters". But it is clear the USPTO coders have not been
checking to see if other fields (such as the "translation" field
and mailing address) contain non-ASCII Unicode characters. </p>
<p>WIPO, as the administrator of the PCT, Madrid, and Hague
systems, has historically served the IP community by nudging the
world's intellectual property offices along towards current
developments. There are many examples of this. See for example
the ST.26 standard for submission of computer-readable genetic
sequence listings. I have to imagine that our friends at WIPO
are trying, as best they can, to think about Unicode. One of
the challenges, of course, is that because of the way that
Madrid Protocol is structured, nobody can file a Madrid
application directly at the International Bureau. (Direct
filing at the IB is possible for PCT and Hague applications, but
not for Madrid applications.) Instead, the only entry path for
a Madrid application is a filing in one or another of the
Offices of Origin. OoOs surely differ greatly from one to the
next as to the richness or paucity of the various data fields.
For all I know there may be some OoOs for which the filing path
even now in 2025 is in the nature of stone tablets with chiseled
writing. <br>
</p>
<p>Some trademark offices are in places where non-Latin
(non-ASCII) characters are very important. Here you can see (<a href="https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/trademarks" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">WIPO web site</a>) a ranking of the ten
biggest users of the Madrid system:</p>
<ol>
<li>US</li>
<li>Germany</li>
<li>China</li>
<li>France</li>
<li>UK</li>
<li>Switzerland</li>
<li>Japan</li>
<li>Italy</li>
<li>Korea</li>
<li>Australia</li>
</ol>
<p>China, Japan, and Korea show up in the top ten, and in each of
those places, non-Latin (non-ASCII) characters are very
important. My sense is that Unicode by now supports most
languages including Chinese (simplified and traditional),
Japanese (katakana, hirigana, and kanji), and Korean (hangul).
Hopefully eventually the highest-volume trademark offices will
get together to try to work out ways to make use of Unicode for
filing of trademark applications, for searching, for
publication, and for other workflow purposes. Hopefully
eventually it would reach the point where a Madrid filing could
contain a Unicode mark, and no matter which Office is
designated, the IB could transmit the designation to the
designated Office and that Office could actually know what to do
with the Unicode characters. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div>On 4/15/2025 2:40 PM, Ken Boone via
E-trademarks wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div> Following are 4 recent
registrations with Unicode characters in the
translation/transliteration fields (as evident on the TSDR
summary tab). In each case, the Registration Certificate
simply dropped the Unicode characters.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<div> <span>Drawing</span></div>
</td>
<td>
<div> <span>SN</span></div>
</td>
<td>
<div> <span>RD</span></div>
</td>
<td>
<div> <span>Comment</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div> <u><img alt="previously viewed Image for
98496184, select for more details" id="m_-4177698720584165255x_image_2"></u></div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 98496184</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 01/21/25</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> Translation:\u2002\u2002The wording Benbo<span><b>\u5954\u535a</b></span> has
no meaning in a foreign language.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> Reg. Cert.: The wording Benbo has no meaning in
a foreign language.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div> <u><img alt="previously viewed Image for
98469783, select for more details"></u></div>
<div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 98469783</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 04/08/25</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> Translation:\u2002The English translation of <span> <b>\u96ea\u51b0</b></span> in
the mark is SNOW ICE.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> Reg. Cert.: The English translation of in the
mark is SNOW ICE.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div> <u><img alt="previously viewed Image for
98384496, select for more details" id="m_-4177698720584165255x_image_0"></u></div>
<div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 98384496</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 02/11/25</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> Translation:\u2002\u2002The English translation of <b>\u91d1\u6ee1\u5ead</b> in
the mark is Gold Filled Palace.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> Reg. Cert.: The English translation of in the
mark is Gold Filled Palace.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div> <u><img alt="previously viewed Image for
98018070, select for more details" id="m_-4177698720584165255x_image_1"></u></div>
<div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 98018070</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> 02/04/25</div>
</td>
<td>
<div> Translation:\u2002\u2002The English translation of <span>
<b>\u745e\u5b89\u623f\u5730\u7522</b></span> in the mark is auspicious;
peaceful; real estate.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> Reg. Cert.: The English translation of in the
mark is auspicious; peaceful; real estate.</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div id="m_-4177698720584165255x_Signature">
<div> Happy Unicoding!?!?!</div>
<div> Ken Boone</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
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</blockquote></div>