<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/13/2025 7:53 AM, Pamela Chestek
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CACd5xxfeFx1NbkqMSW3oYUvps96DsDp7_5wqHP4PEu08crap4g@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>That's the assumption i'm not willing to make because I'm
not sure what happens when they are added to the pseudomark
field. Do the lookalike Cyrillic letters get coded as the
regular character lookalike? if you're searching the CM field
for the mark, you will be searching the pseudomark database
too.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Thank you Pamela for posting this. Thanks to you I now know to
wonder about this. For example I wrote this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And after that is [Unicode] U+0415 : CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
IE. It looks like an "E" but you won't get a match if you
search for a "E".</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The two search examples that you provided suggest that maybe some
human-initiated process at the Trademark Office sometimes leads to
a mapping of a U-0415 into an ASCII 76 (a Latin "E") in a PM
field. Or maybe this is actually <i><b>an automated process</b></i>
that reacts to any U+0415 character by (a) creating a PM field and
(b) mapping U+0415 to ASCII 76 in that newly created PM field. So
now we get to start asking questions.</p>
<p>If a mark in an application or registration contains U+0415, then
is it <i><b>ensured</b></i> by Trademark Office software that (a)
that application or registration automatically gets a pseudomark
entry, and (b) does that Unicode character get coded as an ASCII
decimal 76? (Call this "<i><b>automated software mapping of
Unicode to ASCII into the PM field</b></i>" or "<i><b>ASM</b></i>".)</p>
<p>Or does the Trademark Office rely upon <i><b>human-being
processing</b></i> of each application for some human being in
the Trademark Office to actively decide to create a pseudomark
entry for that application, meaning that there might be
applications and registrations where no PM entry got created
despite presence of (say) a U+0415 in the mark? In other words
human error might lead to a failure to create a PM entry in an
application where it is actually needed?</p>
<p>If the latter (if the Trademark Office relies upon human-being
processing), then when the human being decides to create a
pseudomark entry for that application, is it automatic (in
software) that the U+0415 gets mapped to ASCII 76? Or does it
rely upon alertness and accuracy for the human being to map the
the U+0415 to ASCII 76? In other words human error might lead to
a failure to map the the U+0415 to ASCII 76? Maybe the human
being might inadvertently failure to map it at all? Maybe the
human being might inadvertently map it to some other ASCII value?</p>
<p>Let's suppose that it was only recently that the Trademark Office
commenced <i><b>ASM</b></i><b> </b>for newly filed applications<i><b>.</b></i>
If so, then it would be safe to assume that there are countless
numbers of earlier-filed applications and registrations in which
the ASM had not taken place and in which U+0415 characters
represent guaranteed search failures. Maybe the Trademark Office
needs to carry out a "clean-up" ASM on the entire corpus of earlier-filed
applications and registrations? Has the Trademark Office done so?</p>
<p>One could imagine a number of ways that an ASM process directed
to the entire corpus of earlier-filed applications and
registrations could lead to unintended results. Suppose that a
particular registration contains an ASCII 36 (a dollar sign) that
got mapped (years ago) into a PM entry with an ASCII 83 (a Latin
S). And suppose that particular registration also contains a U+0415
that until now had not gotten mapped into a PM entry. Now let's
say the Trademark Office decides to do a "clean-up" ASM on the entire
corpus of earlier-filed applications and registrations. The ASM
will presumably encounter the U+0415 in that particular
registration and will decide "we had better create a PM entry".
Does that lead to a discard of the previous PM entry that mapped
the ASCII 36 to the ASCII 83? </p>
<p>But also recall the <a
href="https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/2009/week52/TOCCN/item-381.htm#cli381"
style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 600; color: rgb(0, 94, 162); text-decoration: none;">Invitation
to the Public to Submit Suggestions Regarding Database Design
Codes and Pseudo-Marks</a><span> </span>(OG notice December 29,
2009). Some PM entries exist not because of some automatic
mapping but instead because a human being decided the PM entry
needed to exist. It might be that a Trademark Office person
decided it. Or the applicant or registrant decided it. Or a
third party decided it. In any case suppose some PM entry in a
particular application or registration exists because a human
being decided it should be so. And now suppose that particular
application or registration also contains a U+0415 that until now
had not gotten mapped into a PM entry. Will the "clean-up" ASM
lead to a discard of the previous PM that happened due to human
intervention?</p>
<p>I would be astonished if it were to turn out that ASM already
exists in USPTO software. There are at least two reasons why
this would astonish me. First, you can go to the search box at
the USPTO web site and plug in "Unicode". Yes you will get a few
hits, but they are limited to two areas -- patent application
DOCX, and ST26 genetic sequence listings. Not one of the Unicode
hits leads to anything about trademarks or pseudomarks.</p>
<p>Now we all know the search box at the USPTO web site is very
limited in what it can find. We all know that Google (for
example) finds lots of stuff on the USPTO web site that the local
search box won't find. So you can also use Google to try to find
places where the USPTO somehow discussed or discusses Unicode as
it relates to trademarks or pseudomarks. But that also comes up
empty.</p>
<p>It seems to me that if the Trademark Office had gone to the
trouble to create ASM, surely this would have somehow leaked out
into some place that would reveal itself in a web search. </p>
<p>But let's suppose that the Trademark Office has, against all
odds, actually created and implemented ASM despite no hint or
suggestion of it in the public record. If so, then one would hope
that in the spirit of transparency, the Trademark Office would <i><b>publish
the mapping</b></i>. Some published document would say "we
always map U+0415 to ASCII 76". This way everyone would know what
to expect. And if the mapping were flawed (suppose the Trademark
Office failed to realize that U+0415 needs to get mapped to ASCII
76?) then there would be an opportunity for the trademark
community to suggest remedies for such failures.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that in various open-source
software communities, this mapping of Unicode to ASCII is
well-plowed ground. Each open-source software community is filled
with very smart people who think about such things. Each
open-source programming language (for example PHP and Python) has
one or or more functions, for example, for trying to do such
mappings. </p>
<p>Maybe the Trademark Office has already reached out to one or more
of the open-source software communities and has learned ways to be
smart about Unicode. Or maybe not.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p> </p>
<br>
</body>
</html>