Pamela Chestek

practices in trademark, copyright, open source, advertising, and marketing law. She has worked in both law firm and in-house environments serving a variety of fields—-footwear and apparel, software, design, retail, and manufacturing are a few. She has been an adjunct law professor and often writes and speaks about ownership disputes in patent, trademark and copyright cases, including scholarly articles on the subject.

For more information or to contact Pamela, please visit her Firm Profile Page.

Recent Articles by Pamela Chestek

Petition Asks USPTO to Undo Rulemaking on Physical Addresses in Trademark Applications

In February 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) instituted a rulemaking with the goal of reducing the number of fraudulent or inaccurate trademark applications. USPTO data shows that there has been a significant increase in applications from China, and many of those applications appear to be fraudulent or inaccurate. The USPTO therefore proposed new rules designed to address the problem. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) stated that the new rules would add a requirement that applicants, registrants, or parties to a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board proceeding who are not domiciled in the United States be represented by a U.S. attorney in good standing. The USPTO received comments on the new rules and published the final rules on July 2, 2019. Nothing about the rulemaking seemed out of the ordinary. However, the shoe dropped with the publication of a new Examination Guide 4-19 on August 2. Not only did foreign applicants need to have lawyers, according to the guide, but every applicant and registrant had to provide a physical street address for the application, regardless of whether they were represented.

October 2, 2019

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