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<p>Here (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=99134995&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch">TSDR</a>)
is one of the dozens of pending cases at the USPTO that Ken
flagged in his posting on May 7, 2025. The mark is Z·PILOT, which
at the time it was filed (April 14, 2025) contained a unicode
"hyphenation point" between the Z and the PILOT. This was a
unicode hex 2027 character <i><b>which is not a standard
character. </b></i></p>
<p>And yet the applicant, in the e-filing process on April 14, was
able to get away with checking the box to say that it was
supposedly a standard character mark.</p>
<p>I flagged this specific software fail in a followup posting to
the listserv, following up on Ken's post.</p>
<p>This was a fail on the part of the developers of Trademark
Center. The software should have refused to permit the filer to
get away with checking the "standard character" box given that the
"hyphenation point" is not a standard character. But on April 14,
2025 the Trademark Center software snoozed through it and did not
notice that the filer was trying to use a character that is not a
"standard character" as <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/standard-character-set">defined
by</a> the Trademark Office.</p>
<p>Two things have happened some time after Ken flagged this issue:</p>
<ul>
<li>in this particular case 99134995 the Trademark Office very
quietly lurched back and forth and eventually got the character
"standardized", and</li>
<li>the Trademark Office corrected its software fail, so that now
Trademark Center will catch this kind of problem.</li>
</ul>
<p><i><b>Quiet lurching back and forth. </b></i>The application got
filed on April 14. Ken flagged the fail on May 7. </p>
<p>Then on August 22 (after Ken's posting and my followup posting)
some nameless person at the Trademark Office mailed out a Notice
of Design Search Code, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>26.11.02 - Plain single line rectangles<br>
26.11.02 - Rectangles (single line)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The design search codes were, of course, absolutely nuts. There
are no rectangles anywhere in this mark, nor any "single lines".
Completely nuts. My guess is the nameless person selected these
design search codes not because they made sense but specifically
because they were nuts, as a way to force the Examiner to deal
with it.</p>
<p>Then the case got assigned to an Examiner. This was on September
9. And <i><b>that same day</b></i> the Examiner phoned up the
applicant's attorney, according to a "note to file", and
"confirmed proper appearance of standard character mark with
attorney and updated drawing".</p>
<p>And the Examiner changed the Unicode "hyphenation point" into a
standard-character "middle dot". This was on September 9. This
does straighten out the standard-character issue in this case.</p>
<p>Oh and the wacko crazy design search codes about single-line
rectangles have gotten deleted from the case. I am guessing that
the Examiner was the one who cleaned that up.</p>
<p>And now it is September 16 and the Examiner has mailed out an
Office Action on a separate issue, unrelated to this "standard
character" stuff. The case is moving forward.</p>
<p><i><b>Correcting software fail in Trademark Center. </b></i>As
of April 14, 2025 the Trademark Center software was defective and
would fail to notice if a filer's proposed mark might happen to
fail to be made completely of "standard characters". But (I just
today tested this in Trademark Center) if I were to try to file
the same thing that the applicant filed on April 14, 2025,
Trademark Center very correctly will puke on the proposed mark.
It says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span
style="color: rgb(216, 57, 51); font-family: "Public Sans Web", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">This
entry must be in standard characters. \u2027 is not part of the<span> </span></span><a
_ngcontent-ng-c2454807356=""
href="https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/standard-character-set"
target="_blank" rel="noopener"
style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 94, 162); text-decoration: underline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Public Sans Web", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal;">standard
character set</a><span
style="color: rgb(216, 57, 51); font-family: "Public Sans Web", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>So some time between April 14 and today (September 16), the
Trademark Office developers <i><b>corrected the fail</b></i> in
the software.</p>
<p>What I can tell you is that <i><b>nobody from the Trademark
Office</b></i> did me the courtesy of letting me know that the
developers corrected their software fail.</p>
<p>My best guess is that <i><b>nobody from the Trademark Office</b></i> did
Ken the courtesy of letting him know that the developers corrected
their software fail.</p>
<p>But the software did get corrected at the Trademark Office some
time during those five months. Now if a filer were to try to use
a non-standard character, the software will puke on it as quoted
above in red.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><i><b><br>
</b></i></p>
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