Takeaway: After a misstep by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, tens of thousands of applicants became vulnerable to scammers, but the USPTO says it is diligently working on ensuring that this issue would not occur again.
The USPTO said it was “recently made aware” of an incident occurring on May 24 in which courtesy notices were sent to approximately 21,000 email addresses of applicants whose trademarks had received registration.
The notices were posted on the office’s Trademarks Status & Document Retrieval System, or TSDR, and included applicant email addresses. The USPTO said, “We have taken immediate action to retract the courtesy notices and are replacing them with ones that no longer contain this information. We take great pride in our ability to provide our brand community with the high-quality service it deserves and have taken steps to prevent the issue from occurring again.”
