Posts Tagged: "Commissioner for Trademarks"

On June 23, a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) blog post published a piece authored by Commissioner for Trademarks David Gooder discussing a massive surge in trademark application filings at the agency this year. Through June 17, the USPTO had received 63% more trademark applications (211,000 additional filings) when compared to the same period in 2020. Spurred on by the growth of the internet economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge has created a backlog of trademark applications that has extended the wait times for first office actions to an average of 5.2 months and final disposals of applications to an average of 10.5 months.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced today that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has appointed David Gooder to be the new USPTO Commissioner for Trademarks, replacing Mary Boney Denison, who retired from the position in December 2019 after eight years with the Office. Since Boney Denison’s retirement, Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations Meryl Hershkowitz has been acting in the role of Commissioner. Gooder most recently served as Chief Trademark Counsel for Brown-Forman Corporation, which is among the largest American-owned spirits and wine companies. According to the USPTO press release, at Brown-Forman, “Gooder directed the company’s global intellectual property work, including managing its large trademark portfolio, rights clearance, brand protection (including anti-counterfeiting), licensing, and entertainment deals for the brands.”

On December 31, the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Commissioner for Trademarks, Mary Boney Denison, retired from her position with the agency. Denison joined the USPTO in 2011 as Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations and became Commissioner for Trademarks on January 1, 2015. Before joining the USPTO, she practiced law in the area of trademark prosecution and litigation, as a founding partner of Manelli Denison & Selter PLLC in Washington, D.C., from 1996 to 2011, and as a partner of Graham & James LLP for ten years. The USPTO has not yet named the next Commissioner for Trademarks. Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations Meryl Hershkowitz will be acting in the role until the new commissioner is named. In late December, IP Watchdog had the opportunity to interview Denison about her career and her accomplishments at the USPTO. Below, she discusses what she is most proud of, what she could have done better, and provides an update on the Office’s efforts to combat fraudulent trademark filings from China, which has proven to be a major stumbling block for the agency in recent years.

At a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet this morning, titled Counterfeits and Cluttering: Emerging Threats to the Integrity of the Trademark System and the Impact on American Consumers and Businesses, members of Congress expressed concern over the steep rise in trademark applications by Chinese filers, many of which have been found to be fraudulent. The problem has been exacerbated by poor enforcement on the part of platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart; by the limited authority of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to revoke registrations once issued; and by incentives offered by the Chinese government in the form of subsidies to Chinese applicants for U.S. trademarks, said panelists.