[E-trademarks] Recent Registration Date Processing Change?

Mon May 6 12:46:08 EDT 2024

>> Honestly, I'm more relieved that  RD:20240430  yields the same number of hits at the combination of RD:20240430 AND RN:*  plus  RD:20240430 NOT RN:* .  No weird, indeterminate third state.

I have observed that weird, indeterminate third state several times, as TM Search does not terminate a search session as the daily update occurs, so search results can become weird when performed as the daily update occurs or when comparing searches performed before and after an update.  Following is a write-up of that phenomenon that I recorded on April 23rd.

As it happens, on April 23rd, I was awake at 5:30 ET and began checking Trademark Search for updates.  At 5:30, the search UD:20240423 did NOT retrieve any trademarks.  I subsequently appended the time to the end of my search.  Exporting that session summary and then sorting the search summary by Query generated the following table - that the update that day began around 5:45 AM and concluded around 5:48 AM.

Query
 Count
Change
LD:true 5:45
      4,196,733
LD:true 5:46
      4,196,668
           (65)
LD:true 5:47
      4,194,604
     (2,064)
LD:true 5:48
      4,196,611
       2,007
LD:true 5:48
      4,196,611
             -
LD:true 5:49
      4,196,611
             -
UD:20240423
                    -
UD:20240423 5:44
                    -
UD:20240423 5:45
              2,441
       2,441
UD:20240423 5:46
              2,441
             -
UD:20240423 5:47
            16,132
     13,691
UD:20240423 5:48
            23,135
       7,003
UD:20240423 5:49
            23,135
             -

On TESS, the date & time of the last update was displayed on the search screen with a message like

TESS was last updated on Sat Apr 17 08:13:25 EDT 2021

and TESS blocked all users from performing searches while the update was in progress.   That update date/time information does not appear on Trademark Search, plus since a search session can continue for several days, weird results are possible.

Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone

PS - If you perform a search that yields up to 500 hits, you might try exporting that hit list with the First 500 results option, then sort that Excel file by serial number and check for duplicate serial numbers is Excel file.  I had another search (319 results for FD:20240505 AND LD:true, where 100 duplicate serial numbers appeared in the exported listing) that, when exported, some duplicate serial numbers appeared.  That is, the actual hit list did not include duplicate serial numbers, but the exported results was corrupted with duplicate serial numbers.  I did share that search and generated Excel file with the USPTO via the feedback feature.

________________________________
From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> on behalf of Sam Castree via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Sent: Monday, May 6, 2024 9:54 AM
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Sam Castree <sam at castreelaw.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Recent Registration Date Processing Change?

Honestly, I'm more relieved that  RD:20240430  yields the same number of hits at the combination of RD:20240430 AND RN:*  plus  RD:20240430 NOT RN:* .  No weird, indeterminate third state.

Cheers,

Sam Castree, III

Sam Castree Law, LLC
3421 W. Elm St.
McHenry, IL 60050
(815) 344-6300

On Sun, May 5, 2024 at 11:15 AM Ken Boone via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com<mailto:e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>> wrote:
I tried to do a quick check of registrations issued last Tuesday.

The search RD:20240430 retrieves 7,212 trademarks.  I assumed each would have a registration number.

The search RD:20240430 AND RN:* only retrieves 7,080 trademarks.  Same for the search RD:20240430 AND SA:registered.

Alternatively, the search RD:20240430 NOT RN:* retrieves 132 trademarks.  Same for the search RD:20240430 AND SA:review.  Same for the search RD:20240430 AND RG:supplemental.  The Trademark Search status LIVE PENDING is reported for these 132 trademarks, while the TSDR has Review prior to publication completed as the status. (Well, the few I checked.)

These unusual occurrences (registration date entries without corresponding registration numbers) got me looking for other such occurrences.  The search RD:[* TO 20240505] NOT RN:* retrieves 191 trademarks.  That is, for registration dates up to today, 191 trademarks have a registration date entry but do NOT include a registration number.  Conveniently, that's a small enough count to export all 191 trademarks, and I have summarized those 191 trademarks by registration date (all calendar year 2024) in the following table.

Reg. Date
Principal Register
Supplemental Register
Total
02/20/24
5
0
5
03/19/24
17
1
18
03/26/24
41
0
41
04/30/24
0
127
127
Grand Total
63
128
191

(Okay, something is wrong with my summary, as I only list 127 instead of 132 trademarks for 04/30/24.  Ooops.)

Is this an expected behavior - that the USPTO would load a registration date for a trademark record without a registration number?  Do you suppose this behavior is because the USPTO is maintaining a legacy system, Trademark Reporting And Monitoring (TRAM), as well as an updated one, and the issue will resolve when we retire TRAM?  Thoughts?

Wait.  I observed a similar phenomenon with the published for opposition date field.

The search PO:20240430 retrieves 10,864 trademarks.  I assumed all those trademarks were published for opposition last Tuesday.  Not so fast.  The search PO:20240430 AND SA:published only retrieves 10,734 trademarks.  Alternatively, the search PO:20240430 AND SA:review retrieves 108 trademarks, where TSDR has the status Review prior to publication completed for the trademarks I checked.  (Expanding the date range via the search PO:[* TO 20240430] AND SA:review retrieves 11,324 trademarks {all live} with published for opposition date entries that have passed and the term review in the SA - Status field, though since that field is NOT displayed on TM Search ...) Again, is this the behavior that you expected for the published for opposition field?  Thoughts?

Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone
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