[E-trademarks] Trademark Search: Missing Wordmarks For New TEAS Special Form Drawings???

Thu Feb 13 14:19:22 UTC 2025

Good News:  Trademark Search updates have been revised to allow wordmark entries for applications having the MD:unknown condition.

Yesterday, the search

UD:[20241206 TO *] AND MD:unknown AND FM:*

did NOT return any trademark records. Today, that search returns 53,354 trademarks.

I suspect the LOC searches that you performed yesterday that concentrated on wordmark entries will provide additional trademarks to review today.

Well, that creates some bad news too, namely that my list of questionable wordmarks is growing significantly today.  I'm still reviewing today's update to Trademark Search (as my check for QUESTIONABLE WORKMARKS is likely to take several hours to complete, as suddenly I have a significant number of wordmark entries to review.  (I've already added about 20 newer trademark applications to my questionable wordmarks list and I'm less than halfway through the list of trademarks to review.)  I may have more comments on this questionable wordmark theme later.  Today's update to Quality Control searches will likely be delayed also.  So it goes.
?
Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone
________________________________
From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> on behalf of Ken Boone via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Sent: Monday, January 6, 2025 8:38 AM
To: E-Trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Ken Boone <boondogles at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Trademark Search: Missing Wordmarks For New TEAS Special Form Drawings???

A few more unexpected observations related to this MD:unknown theme.

The Trademark processing wait times page states

We are currently examining new applications submitted between: June 24, 2024 - July 08, 2024

from which one might assume that Pre-Exam has completed their initial processing of all pending trademarks filed prior to 24 June 2024, but the search

LD:true AND FD:[* TO 20240623] AND MD:unknown

retrieves 3,901 live trademarks filed prior to 24 June 2024 with the unknown mark drawing code.

Admittedly, not all of those 3,901 live trademarks are the fault of incomplete processing by Pre-Exam.  For example, there are multiple older dead registrations in the 81 series that TM Search still considers to be live registrations, plus there are some skeleton records in the 89-series that have yet to be populated with real data among those search results, but I expect that most of the 3,901 trademarks retrieved by that search are applications that Pre-Exam has yet to process.  (From my experience, Pre-Exam does NOT use the search system to double check whether they accidentally skipped their initial processing of applications.  Apparently USPTO management isn't checking either.)

Looking a little deeper at Madrid applications, the search

LD:true AND MD:unknown AND SN:79* AND FD:[* TO 20240623] NOT (WD:*)

retrieves 196 Madrid trademarks with the unknown mark drawing code filed prior to 6/24/24 that do NOT have wordmark entries.  Sorting those search results in increasing serial number order (to view them in the order received at the USPTO), I noticed multiple Madrid applications that looked suspiciously like standard character marks. Checking the raw applications on TSDR often (but not always) confirmed my standard character mark suspicions - that initial processing of Madrid applications failed to preserve the standard character claims and wordmark entries on USPTO systems for multiple older Madrid applications still awaiting processing by Pre-Exam.

Below is a listing of the first dozen such standard character marks with the false MD:unknown characteristic, curiously all received at the USPTO on 02/29/24.  All have the new application awaiting assignment to an examining attorney status on TSDR.  All need further processing by Pre-Exam.  I included the serial number, the filing date provided by the IB, the date the USPTO received the Madrid application, and the wordmark provided in the application that was ignored and excluded from both TSDR and TM Search.

#
SN
FD
USPTO Date
Wordmark Provided By IB
1
79390633
02/02/24
02/29/24
JULES VERNE
2
79390636
01/30/24
02/29/24
ACTIMARIS
3
79390637
02/06/24
02/29/24
FRICOFIN
4
79390638
02/02/24
02/29/24
KEPLER
5
79390646
01/22/24
02/29/24
TEPI PATCH
6
79390653
02/02/24
02/29/24
investengine
7
79390659
01/24/24
02/29/24
D-PYRE
8
79390660
01/31/24
02/29/24
ATAWA
9
79390661
01/31/24
02/29/24
SWEETZYME
10
79390662
02/01/24
02/29/24
INFINEO
11
79390664
01/26/24
02/29/24
Return to Shironagasu Island
12
79390666
02/07/24
02/29/24
FOUNTAIN FUEL

Why did the initial processing by the USPTO fail to recognize and preserve the standard characters claim when loading these (and presumably many others) Madrid applications to USPTO systems?

For your convenience, the search SN:( 79390633 79390636 79390637 79390638 79390646 79390653 79390659 79390660 79390661 79390662 79390664 79390666 ) retrieves those 12 Madrid filings where the USPTO failed to preserve the standard characters claim and provide the wordmarks on TSDR or TM Search. GEFGW?

Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone

PS: The highest electronic application for 1/5/25 loaded to TM Search this morning is 98938472, so the 98-series has room for 36,527 more electronic filings (i.e., via TEAS or Trademark Center) before midnight on January 17th to avoid the necessity of starting a new series.

PPS: One live trademark registration in the 76 series has the MD:unknown condition, namely 76140440 (registration 2616797), with the mark consists of of the word IRINOX in stylized letters as the description of mark.  The next oldest live MD:unknown trademark (ignoring the noise records of the 81 and 89 series) is 97742991, a 5 Jan 2023 filing that was abandoned in error. It has been reinstated and is awaiting further action. I see no obvious action on this application since March 2023.  The search LD:true AND MD:unknown AND FD:[20230101 TO 20231231] NOT (SN:81* SN:89* ) retrieves 24 trademarks filed in 2023 that still await initial processing by Pre-Exam.  Some still have wordmarks, though wordmarks disappear any time a MD:unknown record is updated on TM Search.

#
SN
FiledDate
Wordmark
1
98670609
2023-12-20
2
98185711
2023-09-18
HOPLITO
3
98183363
2023-09-17
SHUYE
4
98183254
2023-09-16
AESVANITOP
5
97742991
2023-01-05
FLIPSHOPCART
6
79414064
2023-11-09
7
79413935
2023-11-09
8
79413805
2023-11-09
9
79413723
2023-12-01
10
79413227
2023-12-13
11
79413114
2023-10-24
12
79409484
2023-10-09
ATLAS COPCO GROUP
13
79409369
2023-12-05
FERRARI 499 GTB
14
79398769
2023-10-23
DEATH CAFE
15
79391549
2023-12-07
GIO+
16
79391536
2023-12-08
NOLIVADE
17
79391529
2023-12-01
FORETHIX
18
79391527
2023-11-06
19
79391521
2023-12-14
20
79391513
2023-12-22
RELATICS
21
79391104
2023-11-11
EQUAL
22
79390674
2023-12-20
F
23
79390673
2023-12-20
FTN
24
79382531
2023-07-17

________________________________
From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> on behalf of Ken Boone via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2024 10:13 AM
To: E-Trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Ken Boone <boondogles at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Trademark Search: Missing Wordmarks For New TEAS Special Form Drawings???

I've done some additional searching since Friday towards identifying when this missing wordmark phenomenon began.

The search UD:20241205 AND MD:unknown AND FM:* retrieves 509 trademarks.

The search UD:[20241206 TO *] AND MD:unknown retrieves 11,469 trademarks, but

the search UD:[20241206 TO *] AND MD:unknown AND FM:* does not retrieve any trademarks.

I conclude that for updates beginning December 6th and continuing through today's update, the Trademark Search update processing blocks the load of wordmark entries for trademarks having the UNKNOWN mark drawing code.  This change impacts TEAS and Madrid filings, whether live or dead.

While Carl thinks this change in USPTO processing was a coding blunder that should have been caught during testing, I'm thinking the change was intentional - that some USPTO manager requested and approved this change on Trademark Search - that the USPTO now requires Pre-Exam to review wordmarks and provide a valid mark drawing code for the wordmarks to be available on Trademark Search for searching - that inconsistencies for wordmarks between Trademark Search and TSDR for trademarks that have not been processed by Pre-Exam is NOT considered a problem.

Well, let's hope Carl is correct.

I'll be performing the UD:[20241206 TO *] AND MD:unknown AND FM:* search daily for the near future, but I am NOT optimistic that the USPTO will reverse the decision to exclude from Trademark Search wordmarks that haven't been reviewed and approved by Pre-Exam.

But there is good news, namely that this change on Trademark Search does not impact standard character marks.  Imagine not being able to search the wordmarks of standard character marks until Pre-Exam reviewed and approved those applications.

Happy New Year,
Ken Boone

________________________________

From: Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2024 9:06 AM
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Trademark Search: Missing Wordmarks For New TEAS Special Form Drawings???

Thank you Ken for posting.

Like many of us old-timers in the trademark community, in an earlier life I did a lot of coding in several different programming languages.  Nowadays I find myself doing a lot of PHP coding (blog article<https://blog.oppedahl.com/how-to-find-a-php-programmer/>) for a variety of hobby projects.  I regularly make mistakes in my own coding, but then I realize my mistakes and I try to fix what I got wrong.

My main reaction to this recent posting by Ken is that the USPTO coders on these systems are simply not doing their jobs competently.   There are simple and straightforward things that competent coders can do to test their work before putting new code into production service.  And it is clear that the USPTO coders are failing to do such testing.  See the embarrassing results in this blog article from four months ago:  Trademark Office can’t handle its own characters<https://blog.oppedahl.com/trademark-office-cant-handle-its-own-characters/>.

On 12/27/2024 6:40 AM, Ken Boone via E-trademarks wrote:
I happened to notice that multiple recent TEAS applications that are NOT standard character marks do not have wordmark entries on Trademark Search, yet when I toggled to TSDR, most of the drawings that looked worthy of word marks had wordmark entries on TSDR.  This prompted the search

FD:20241220 AND LD:true NOT FM:*

that retrieves 609 TEAS applications filed last Friday that do not have wordmark entries on Trademark Search.  Per the table below, 23 of the first 25 trademarks (increasing serial number order) have wordmark entries on TSDR but not on Trademark Search. (I only checked the first 25 trademarks for that search.)

#
SN
Search WM
TSDR WM
1
98904955

POWERS'X
2
98911295

FEASTMATE
3
98911517

LOOPYDOO
4
98911546

H HERBALOGY
5
98912752

SANGA EATS
6
98913717

WINGED WOLF I…
7
98913792

MYY
8
98913992

TIJVZK
9
98913995

HOIFAANLONG
10
98913999

CAFE VIDA
11
98914005

HEOICYU
12
98914007

not recorded
13
98914008

HIIT WATER
14
98914009

REMIMPI
15
98914010

SUPREME FIRE S…
16
98914013

CW THE CUSTOM…
17
98914016

MODERN MADE
18
98914019

HEKBATSIU
19
98914024

not recorded
20
98914026

BLOEM
21
98914039

GUNGJOENG
22
98914042

DANNY JIA
23
98914043

GONGNAAMJYULOK
24
98914048

GOKZIJYUZAU
25
98914054

GOEKZAANG

While the wordmark entries on TSDR likely are the literal elements provided by in the raw applications that probably have NOT been reviewed by Pre-Exam, I still expected Trademark Search and TSDR would have matching wordmark entries.  After all, why would you expect the two systems to differ?

Yes, I've shared this wordmark inconsistency between TSDR and Trademark Search with the USPTO.  No, I have not researched how long these inconsistencies have been occurring.

Happy Trademarking,
Ken Boone

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