U.S. Trademark Backlog Now Being Published

The August though November 2005 issues of the Trademark Official Gazette (TMOG) are expected to feature as many as 10,000 marks. These large volumes are the result of a processing backlog that the USPTO accumulated when it moved its offices to its current facility in Alexandria, Va. The USPTO deeply regrets any inconvenience.

In light of this development, the USPTO wants you to know that the on-line Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) can be used to search an individual volume or volumes of the TMOG. For example, parties can conduct a search that will generate a list of all marks published for opposition in a particular TMOG volume that include a particular word or a particular design, or that are owned by particular parties, or whose associated goods or services are classified in a particular class.

Examples of possible TESS searches of individual TMOG volumes are set forth below. Note that whereas the TMOG is published each Tuesday, the TESS records for particular marks generally do not include the TMOG publication date for the mark until the following Wednesday. Hence, a search of a particular TMOG issue that is conducted on the day that issue is published may not yield any results.

Example #1: Search for all marks published for opposition in the TMOG of August 9, 2005 that are comprised of or feature the term DOG, using the “structured form search” option:

1. Enter 20050809 as the first search term;
2. Select “Published for Opposition Date” as the field within which the term
   identified above should be searched for;
3. Select AND as the Boolean operator;
4. Enter *DOG* as the second search term; and
5. Select “Basic Index” as the field within which the second term identified
   above should be searched.

Example #2: Search for all marks published for opposition in the TMOG of August 2, 2005 that feature a design of either a dog or the head of a dog, using the “free form search” option. Enter the following into the search field:

20050802[po] and (030108 OR 030116)[DC]

Example #3: Conduct a sequence of searches, each of which builds on the previous search, using the “free form” search option.

1. Generate a list of all marks published for opposition in the TMOG of August 2, 2005 by entering the following in the search field:

   20050802[po]

2. After generating the list referred to above, generate a list of all
   marks published for opposition in the TMOG of August 2, 2005 that identify goods classified in international class 9 by entering the following in the search field:

   s1 and 009[ic]

3. After generating the second referred to above, generate a list of all
   marks published for opposition in the TMOG of August 2, 2005 that identify goods classified in international class 9, AND that include the word “software” in the identification of goods, by entering the following in the search field:
   

   s2 software[gs]

Learn more about TESS here.