[E-trademarks] Regex search

[Neil R. Ormos]

Carl Oppedahl wrote:
> Pamela Chestek wrote:

>> For one thing, it means that whenever you do a
>> search you have to make a decision about
>> whether to use the Advanced syntax or the regex
>> syntax. And it appears there are situations
>> where you /must/ use one or the other, such as
>> my t-shirt example, which means you have to be
>> highly skilled with both.

>> If you don't remember that the search string in
>> regex must be lowercase, and enter the term as
>> it actually appears in the ID, you may have
>> just screwed the pooch. It's just an invitation
>> to disaster because unless you are a master of
>> both you won't realize that your query was
>> malformed. [...]

>> There are so many examples of unreliable
>> queries - forgetting a colon after the field
>> tag, or failing to use all caps for connectors,
>> also give you some results and you may not
>> realize they are unreliable. I have submitted a
>> request that a malformed query be flagged. It
>> might not be possible with the t-shirt example,
>> but it should be possible to at least identify
>> syntactical errors.

> What she said.

The search language of the new system seems exceptionally brittle for something intended to be used by the public, or by anyone who has not received extensive training and does not practice searching daily.

If we believe the trademark examining attorneys use the same search system, perhaps the training materials are available through FOIA.