Accuracy and accusation are different responsibilities. In describing a trademark proof-of-use pilot, the USPTO reported accepting affidavits for 422 of 500 selected registrations, including some accepted after queried goods or services were deleted. That record supports scrutiny of what a registration claims. It does not justify describing every correction, missing response or unproven item as deliberate deception. [2017-02796][2017-00317]

The January 19, 2017 final rule gave the distinction an administrative setting. It expanded evidence authority for section 8 continued-use or excusable-nonuse filings and section 71 use-in-commerce or excusable-nonuse filings. Recognizing excusable nonuse matters: a fair account cannot turn every absence of current use into the same moral or legal conclusion. [2017-02796][2017-00317]

The amendments concerned reasonably necessary information, exhibits and specimens for examination or assessment of register accuracy. A corrected list could serve that accuracy purpose even when the original list was not fully supported. The pilot's accepted affidavits therefore were not a count of untouched, entirely correct registrations, and its limited denominator was not a census of the national register. [2017-02796][2017-00317]

On February 10, the agency postponed the expanded rule's effective date from February 17 to March 21, 2017. The new authority was still future authority, not an accomplished enforcement result. Read together, the rule and postponement support a concrete ethical standard: describe both the evidence sought and the status of the person or filing accurately. They do not establish guilt, universal compliance or a shared religious judgment about trademark ownership. [2017-02796][2017-00317]

Source documents

  1. Changes in Requirements for Affidavits or Declarations of Use, Continued Use, or Excusable Nonuse in Trademark Caseshttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-02-10/html/2017-02796.htm
  2. Changes in Requirements for Affidavits or Declarations of Use, Continued Use, or Excusable Nonuse in Trademark Caseshttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-01-19/html/2017-00317.htm