[E-trademarks] Standard Character Watch: Substitute M For µ In Word Mark Entries?

[Ken Boone]

I'm still checking for unexpected occurrences of the ? question mark character in word mark entries and recently witnessed a curious correction of a previously blemished word mark entry.

The mark submitted is µDrive Nexus in standard characters (97836045).  Early this year, I noticed that USPTO processing changed the µ into the ? question mark character. Then mark was published for opposition on 12 March with that blemished word mark entry ?DRIVE NEXUS as confirmed by the 09 Feb 2024 TRAM Snapshot of App at Pub for Oppostn document on TSDR.

Today, both TSDR and Trademark Search show MDRIVE NEXUS as the corrected word mark, not exactly the correction I was expecting.  Why wasn't µDRIVE NEXUS entered as the corrected word mark?

I consulted an old contact at the USPTO, and here's the explanation provided:  The USPTO converts word mark entries to UPPER CASE characters, a tradition that traces back to the earliest digital records at the Office.  The character µ is a lower-case Greek character whose corresponding upper case is M.  Therefore, MDRIVE NEXUS is the preferred word mark entry on USPTO systems for the trademark µDrive Nexus.

I'll bet you weren't expecting that.

Then I asked if all word mark entries that include the character µ would be updated with the substitution of M for µ?  The reply:  Don't be silly.  With the current backlog, the USPTO doesn't have the resources to undertake an effort like that.

Other recent activity for my questionable word mark entries list include:
[Image for 97342305, select for more details]

SN 97342305 had HURAC?N TECNICA as the word mark but was recently corrected to have HURACA'N TECNICA as the word mark. Huh?  The single letter Á that became ? was replaced with A' pair of letters?


[Image for 79392684, select for more details]


SN 79392684, filed 2023-10-11, has JIMMY?S as the word mark.


[Image for 97619644, select for more details]

SN 97619644, filed 2022-10-05, now has H?KR BR? as the word mark.


[Image for 85818197, select for more details]

SN 85818197, filed 2013-01-08, now has M?NCHEN 1972 as the word mark.


[Image for 98096461, select for more details]

SN 98096461, filed 2023-07-21, now has S?L GLOW as the word mark.


Happy Trademarking,

Ken Boone


PS - I currently have 329 marks on my questionable word mark list.  The search WD:/.*\?[a-z0-9].*/ AND LD:true retrieves 304 trademarks, including 218 of the 329 trademarks on my questionable word mark list.  Also, I was kidding about that explanation from a USPTO contact about the substitution of M for µ in word mark entries. April Fools.

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