[E-trademarks] Regex search

Kevin Grierson kgrierson at cm.law
Mon Mar 18 18:24:31 EDT 2024


FWIW, The PTO provided 3 hours of CLE on searching about a month ago.  The first hour was the basics, the second was advanced search using field tags, and in the third they got into Regex.  The videos are available on the search "front" page: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search.  They also shared materials from those webinars, which are under the heading "clearance searching" on the same page.  I must confess that I was pretty lost by the third hour.  In concept it makes sense but the syntax seems convoluted and unintuitive, and of course the Regex syntax doesn't match the non-Regex field tag searching syntax.


Kevin Grierson
culhane|meadows pllc
  757-726-7799
  866-521-5663
  kgrierson at cm.law



Kevin Grierson
Partner
 757-726-7799
 866-521-5663
 kgrierson at cm.law    
Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Chicago | Dallas | Delaware | Houston | New Jersey | New York | Philadelphia | Washington, DC
This message is for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipient(s) and may be subject to attorney-client privilege. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately. Please note that general marketing updates/legal news alerts provided by Culhane Meadows or its attorneys are for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as legal advice for any specific situation. Laws can change rapidly and, therefore, you should always consult with your CM attorney to ensure you have the most accurate and current counsel pertaining to your situation. ​
-----Original Message-----
From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Neil R. Ormos via E-trademarks
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2024 6:11 PM
To: E-trademarks Mailing List <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Neil R. Ormos <ormos-lists at ormos.org>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Regex search

EXTERNAL EMAIL

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.

--
E-trademarks mailing list
E-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com
http://oppedahl-lists.com/mailman/listinfo/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image961824.png
Type: image/png
Size: 28689 bytes
Desc: image961824.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image455678.png
Type: image/png
Size: 499 bytes
Desc: image455678.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image714562.png
Type: image/png
Size: 535 bytes
Desc: image714562.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image670427.png
Type: image/png
Size: 619 bytes
Desc: image670427.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image726353.png
Type: image/png
Size: 285 bytes
Desc: image726353.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment-0004.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image339998.png
Type: image/png
Size: 452 bytes
Desc: image339998.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment-0005.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image186800.png
Type: image/png
Size: 394 bytes
Desc: image186800.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240318/35051cf3/attachment-0006.png>


More information about the E-trademarks mailing list