[E-trademarks] The ZWSP mistake at the Trademark Office

[Carl Oppedahl]

On 5/24/2025 11:15 AM, Ken Boone via E-trademarks wrote:
> PS - Do you notice anything unusual about 99181596, the trademark 
> _OMMISIMQIST​_ in standard characters.  The search WD:( *​* ) with that
> _Image for 99181596, select for more details_
>
> It's another case of counting the letters in the wordmark.  It looks 
> like there are only 11 characters in the wordmark, but there are 
> actually 12.  The final letter is the Unicode character with decimal 
> value 8203, the /zero-width space (rendered: ​ ; HTML entity: 
> ​ or ​ ), abbreviated ZWSP, is a non-printing 
> character used in computerized typesetting to indicate where the word 
> boundaries are, without actually displaying a visible space in the 
> rendered text/. The search *WD:( *​* ) * with that /zero-width 
> space/ character between the two * wildcard operators retrieves only 
> this OMMISIMQIST​ trademark.  The similar search *CM:( *​* 
> )* retrieves 6 live trademarks, including 2 registrations.  Go figure.
>
Hello fellow listserv members.

It will be recalled that on May 24, Ken found this application 
number 99181596 which is supposedly a standard-character mark, except 
that from the day it was filed it contained Unicode 8203 at the end.  
This is a zero-width space or ZWSP character.

I plugged it into my IP Badger.

I figured that one or another of the many Trademark Office lurkers would 
have quietly flagged the case to correct this Trademark Office mistake.

On September 25, the case reached the desk of the Examining Attorney.  
The EA approved it for publication the next day.

On October 10, this happened:

    692 - WITHDRAWN BEFORE PUBLICATION

    10/10/2025       ON HOLD - ELECTRONIC RECORD REVIEW REQUI…

I assumed this must surely mean that somebody at the Trademark Office 
was paying attention to the failure on the part of the Trademark Office 
to have noticed until now the non-standard character contained in this 
supposedly standard-character mark.

But now on October 12, whoever the nameless person was who pulled the 
case before publication has quietly let go of it.  Now it is back in the 
publication workflow.  The Trademark Office has selected October 28 as 
the day it plans to publish this application.  And (I am not making this 
up) the ZWSP is still in the mark.

Carl


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