[E-trademarks] Petition to restore filing date

[Michael P. Eddy]

Hi Pam,

>From what I recall, the second area Ms. Cotton mentioned was
fraudulent assignments. I've also had a fraudulent CAR filing
attempted after an application was filed properly and approved by the
examining attorney with no underlying fraudulent facts in the
application. It was still suspended because of the attempt to appoint
an attorney that hijacked a California bar member's name and bar
number.

Michael

On Wed, Apr 23, 2025 at 3:51 PM Pamela Chestek via E-trademarks
<e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:
>
> I attended a USPTO Hour this morning where fraudulent applications were discussed. Amy Cotton was abundantly clear that the fraudulent application should not be pursued, even though the applicant was innocently duped, and that the only thing that should be done is file a new application. I'm not familiar with the possibility of restoring or reassigning an application number to a different application, but based on what was said you're not going to get much sympathy.
>
>
> It was an interesting session, where I learned more than I expected to learn. Off the top of my head, my takeaways were:
>
>
> There are two major categories of fraud they're looking at right now:
>
>     Trademark mills, where US attorneys are signing applications prepared by others and not reviewing them;
>
>     The theft of attorney credentials, California attorneys in particular.
>
>
> Ms. Cotton also talked about the fraudulent applications that aren't being processed, some from as far back as 2022. They are aware that these are causing hardship on other applicants because they are holding up later-filed applications. They had hoped to dispose of them by now, but had to other fires to put out:
>
>     An excess of fraudulent CAR filings
>
>     ... and I forget the second one
>
> But they are trying to get the fraudulent applications taken care of.
>
>
> They are working towards role-based access to logins, that is, you will only be able to work on your own records.
>
>
> They are working on automating the identification and processing of fraudulent applications. At the moment it is done manually. I have mixed feelings about this, mostly based on how it is implemented. I have long thought that the PTO didn't appear to be taking advantage of the machine data they have available for the identification of fraudulent applications, so I am optimistic that algorithmic identification could be more reliable than the current practices. However, I do worry that if a valid application is caught up (say you were on vacation in China and signed a few applications in rapid succession), your applications may get stuck in purgatory, or the algorithm is going to be less discerning than the manual process now used.
>
>
> Pam
>
>
> Pamela S. Chestek
> Chestek Legal
> PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS
> 4641 Post St.
> Unit 4316
> El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
> +1 919-800-8033
> pamela at chesteklegal
> www.chesteklegal.com
>
>
> On 4/23/2025 3:10 PM, Russell Nugent via E-trademarks wrote:
>
> Dear Group,
>
> A new client of mine filed an application through a third party freelance service.  The freelancer they connected her with filed two trademark applications under the name of an attorney not affiliated with them.  The USPTO found out the attorney of record had nothing to do with the filing and so issued a notice of incomplete trademark application and cancelled the application serial number.  The remedy was to refile the application correctly and then file a petition to restore the serial number which was simply denied.  Can anyone with any experience with this type of petition provide any guidance on how to approach the USPTO  and whether proving she was scammed is reason to restore the original serial number?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>
> Russell D. Nugent
> Comprising IP
> 1213 Culbreth Dr, Ste 112
> Wilmington, NC 28405
> nugent at comprisingip.com (private)
> 910-550-3259 (private)
> contact at comprisingip.com
> 910-509-7131
>
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