The United States Patent and Trademark Office has released a new set of rules that makes it mandatory for online trademark applicants to verify their identity.
The change is an attempt to address and reduce the trademark scam entities. Identification of applicants had begun as a voluntary process in January but will be a procedural requirement from August 6, 2022.
The USPTO had seen a sharp increase of fraudulent trademark filings, especially from foreign countries like China and Pakistan. It was found that in the period between 2013 and 2017, there was a 1,200% increase of trademark filings originating from China. Many Chinese application were found to contain fake doctored photos, many of the fraudulent flings were approved for publication and were also registered as viable trademarks. The Office has made many attempts to deal with the clutter of fraudulent trademarks, resulting in nearly 20,000 invalidated applications.
In December 2021 the Office dealt with a case of a Chinese company which had filed more than 15,000 trademarks (which took up around 180 pages of the order). The Office issued a ‘Show Cause Order’ imposing sanction against the company and its Executive Director for providing false information of applicants and violating other USPTO rules and terms of use.
The current verification process is set to be updated to include more methods for trademark filers, both online and on paper. All personal information sent to the USPTO for verification is assured to be deleted from systems within a certain time period in order to ensure applicants’ privacy.