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<p>I attended a USPTO Hour this morning where fraudulent
applications were discussed. Amy Cotton was abundantly clear that
the fraudulent application should not be pursued, even though the
applicant was innocently duped, and that the only thing that
should be done is file a new application. I'm not familiar with
the possibility of restoring or reassigning an application number
to a different application, but based on what was said you're not
going to get much sympathy.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>It was an interesting session, where I learned more than I
expected to learn. Off the top of my head, my takeaways were:</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>There are two major categories of fraud they're looking at right
now:</p>
<p> Trademark mills, where US attorneys are signing applications
prepared by others and not reviewing them;</p>
<p> The theft of attorney credentials, California attorneys in
particular.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Ms. Cotton also talked about the fraudulent applications that
aren't being processed, some from as far back as 2022. They are
aware that these are causing hardship on other applicants because
they are holding up later-filed applications. They had hoped to
dispose of them by now, but had to other fires to put out:</p>
<p> An excess of fraudulent CAR filings</p>
<p> ... and I forget the second one</p>
<p>But they are trying to get the fraudulent applications taken care
of.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>They are working towards role-based access to logins, that is,
you will only be able to work on your own records.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>They are working on automating the identification and processing
of fraudulent applications. At the moment it is done manually. I
have mixed feelings about this, mostly based on how it is
implemented. I have long thought that the PTO didn't appear to be
taking advantage of the machine data they have available for the
identification of fraudulent applications, so I am optimistic that
algorithmic identification could be more reliable than the current
practices. However, I do worry that if a valid application is
caught up (say you were on vacation in China and signed a few
applications in rapid succession), your applications may get stuck
in purgatory, or the algorithm is going to be less discerning than
the manual process now used.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Pam<br>
</p>
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<div class="moz-signature">Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS<br>
4641 Post St.<br>
Unit 4316<br>
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762<br>
+1 919-800-8033<br>
pamela@chesteklegal<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.chesteklegal.com">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/23/2025 3:10 PM, Russell Nugent
via E-trademarks wrote:<br>
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Dear Group,</div>
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A new client of mine filed an application through a third party
freelance service. The freelancer they connected her with filed
two trademark applications under the name of an attorney not
affiliated with them. The USPTO found out the attorney of
record had nothing to do with the filing and so issued a notice
of incomplete trademark application and cancelled the
application serial number. The remedy was to refile the
application correctly and then file a petition to restore the
serial number which was simply denied. Can anyone with any
experience with this type of petition provide any guidance on
how to approach the USPTO and whether proving she was scammed
is reason to restore the original serial number? </div>
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Thanks in advance,</div>
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<br>
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Russell D. Nugent</div>
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Comprising IP</div>
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1213 Culbreth Dr, Ste 112</div>
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Wilmington, NC 28405</div>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nugent@comprisingip.com">nugent@comprisingip.com</a> (private)</div>
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910-550-3259 (private)</div>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:contact@comprisingip.com">contact@comprisingip.com</a></div>
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910-509-7131</div>
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