Friday, July 27, 2012

Erik Pelton's Summary of July 13th TPAC Public Meeting

Erik Pelton, at his blog, reports here on the July 13th meeting of the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC).


As to our favorite Tribunal, here is a quick summary of Erik's report. For more details, see Erik's post:

TTAB Update – Chief Judge Rogers:

Staffing Changes – Cheryl Butler is the TTAB’s Senior Attorney and editor of the TBMP, Ken Soloman is the Board’s new Managing Attorney, and Deborah Decker has moved to a new position with the Board.

Vacancy Announcements - The Chief Judge is reviewing applications for two available Administrative Trademark Judge (ATJ) positions. The Board received 45 applications from the most recent announcement. The Board also recently posted an announcement seeking applications for additional interlocutory attorneys (here).

Statistics – The Board is facing challenges keeping up with final decisions. Cases maturing to “Ready for Decision” (“RFD”) are projected to be 659 this year, but the Board is projected to decide only 500 of these cases by the end of the year.

Accelerated Case Resolution – No ACR cases were decided in the most recent quarter, but others are in the pipeline. The Board has decided seven (7) ACR cases so far this year, and they hope to decide three more by the end of the year.

Addressing Backlog – The Board is hiring judges. In addition, Judges and Interlocutory Attorneys are developing templates to use in decisions. The Board is also launching a program that would permit Examining Attorneys to do rotations with the TTAB to prepare memos in support of ATJs as they review the records in cases and other groundwork.

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