[E-trademarks] Caught in an endless loop

[Heather Vargas]

Colleagues,

Last year, I posted to this learned group about a set of 6 certification applications that I filed in September of 2021 that had been tortured through examination and kept getting turned back because the identification of goods was not correct even though the identification was identical to others in the group that had been approved.  A kind soul connected me to the PTO's certification mark guru, who I contacted.  He is currently posted to a workgroup of some sort, undoubtedly where he should be, considering his skill and experience.  He connected me to the supervising attorney of the law office where the applications were pending, who had been ignoring my emails to that point.  She has since done her level best to help me sort out this mess.  She is now suffering from the same curse on these applications.

As of yesterday, the 6 applications went in 4 different directions, two of which I have never seen before in my 24 years of practice at the USPTO:


 1.  The first application finally made it to publication (there was much rejoicing).
 2.  It's mate, that was also scheduled for publication yesterday says that its publication date is March 12th, but is not in the OG and we did not get the publication notice that we got on item 1 (first thing I have never seen before).
 3.  Three of the remaining applications cleared final review and were assigned a publication date of April 2nd, until yesterday, when they were pulled from publication "for further review" (second thing I have never seen before).  I thought final review meant that it was through being reviewed.  Is that not what FINAL review means?
 4.  The last application just hung around for a year in the black hole between "pulled from publication" where the status says it was returned to the Examiner but it actually wasn't.  The supervising attorney was able to call this one up and get it moving again, so that was is back in the queue for who knows what's next.

Most, if not all of these applications have been approved for publication and then pulled 2 or more times.  Pulled from publication is supposed to be a rare event.  How am I supposed to explain to a client that this rare event has now happened to it more than 10 times on a set of 6 applications?!!!

I do not envy the supervising attorney when she opens her email from me this morning and sees the 4 emails requesting her assistance on these same applications that she thought she had cleared up.  I do not blame her as I do believe that she is caught in the same ridiculous system I am.

This is mostly a rant, but it does come with a question. Is there someone whose job it is to look at applications that are lost or cursed and see if they can help when the issue is systemic (problems at examination, review, publication)?  The Supervising Attorney can get me through to pub and issue, but that only gets us so far when we keep getting pushed back from there.  My search for a trademark ombudsman has come up empty so far.  I am assuming I could petition the director or try and invoke the jurisdiction of the TTAB, but that seems like more good time and money after bad.

Also, I would like to propose a new game for the listserv - who has the longest pending use-based applications?  I am throwing my hat in the ring at 2 years and 6 months.

Thanks,






[cid:cobbcolelogomodrgb_4d64a9e3-83d6-4a74-9443-b78133d2646e.png]       Heather Vargas (She/Her/Hers)
Florida Bar No. 230900
Board Certified in Intellectual Property Law
Cobb Cole
149 S. Ridgewood Avenue
Suite 700
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
(D) 386-323-9220 | (F) 386-323-9206
Website<https://cobbcole.com/> | Bio<https://cobbcole.com/attorney/heather-bond-vargas/>



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