Document Type

Blog Post

Publication Date

11-16-2023

Graduation Year

2025

Abstract

If you are looking to file a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), you should raise your vigilance. When the COVID-19 pandemic sent people in the United States into emergency lockdown, brick and mortar businesses closed their doors and people started opening their minds. People found new, and more, ways to be creative and e-commerce began to boom. With budding ideas, creators and companies recognized the imperativeness of protecting their intellectual property. The USPTO announced that as of June 17, 2021, it had experienced an increase of roughly 63% in trademark applications filed over the last year, as well as an increase of 172% from the period of December 2019 to December 2020. This surge comprised both domestic and foreign applicants seeking protection in the United States. As a result, the timeframe for an initial examination of a trademark application approximately doubled from 5.2 months to 10.5 months. These delays led to long wait times for trademarks to become registered and federally protected. Unfortunately, in a rapidly changing world, this meant that businesses may have changed significantly by the time their trademarks became registered.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review on November 16, 2023. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above.

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