[E-trademarks] Regex search

Tue Mar 19 01:05:52 EDT 2024

My heart goes out to you, Carl, Pam, Susan and the many others on this listserv who have extensive trademark practices for all your suffering with the USPTO's ineptitude.

Designing, building, and maintaining software systems is perhaps the hardest, and certainly the least appreciated, task in the technology world.  In too many cases, it's like cooking would be if the characteristics of the tools and ingredients were changing while baking that cake, casserole, or stuffed turkey.  In reality, relatively few people even those in the s/ware world itself really have a hold on what it takes to implement a system effectively.  By way of example ('tho not entirely software), the success of JPL versus the picture we're seeing of Boeing is illustrative.   To steal from Feynman's famous quote about the Shuttle disaster, no matter how much PR, software cannot be fooled.

Too many companies or divisions have gone under for lack of having a "big picture" talent who was also given adequate power to dictate how things  would be done.  All this becomes even worse if a new system is replacing an existing one that at the same time has to continue running.  

That said, Carl's ongoing descriptions of various weaknesses and failings of the new TEAS and other systems are no surprise.  Anyone who's followed Carl's patent "saga of docx" knows how obdurate the PTO is. So why would anyone with the requistite s/ware experience and skills work for the PTO?  And at a fraction of what they'd make on the outside. 

As my tm practice is small and for folks with whom I have a personal relationship, I anticipate side-stepping the system's byzantine design and limits.  For most of you, heartfelt sympathy.

Michael
Michael M. Krieger, Ph.D.
Krieger Law
Los Angeles  CA  90064
310-766-5208

-----Original Message-----
From: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Sent: Mar 18, 2024 3:25 PM
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Kevin Grierson <kgrierson at cm.law>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Regex search

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 (https://www.culhanemeadows.com/attorney/kevin-grierson/)Partner (https://www.linkedin.com/company/culhane-meadows-pllc) (https://www.facebook.com/CulhaneMeadows) (https://twitter.com/culhanemeadows)   757-726-7799 (tel:757-726-7799) 866-521-5663 (fax:866-521-5663) kgrierson at cm.law (mailto:kgrierson at cm.law)     Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Chicago | Dallas | Delaware | Houston | New Jersey | New York | Philadelphia | Washington, DC (https://www.culhanemeadows.com/offices/)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.

--
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