Another Chinese-American lawyer has gone bankrupt. He once represented a well-known intellectual property company in Shanghai!

American trademarks and patents have been exposed again!

I vaguely remember that a month ago, a large number of American standards were exposed. Recently, a document issued by the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) with a lawsuit number of No. D2024-01 was exposed.

The document directly points to a lawyer named CHEN and lists thousands of trademarks and appearance patents he has handled. These trademarks/appearance patents may be cancelled due to non-compliance.

Image source: Screenshot of USPTO document

For a time, it attracted a lot of attention in the cross-border industry. On the one hand, the scope of this thunderstorm is relatively wide! On the other hand, for cross-border sellers, once the trademark/appearance patent is invalidated or forcibly cancelled, the losses caused by it are incalculable!

According to the documents, most of the trademarks involved in this case were submitted between January 2021 and December 2022. Attorney CHEN served as the attorney for more than 9,000 trademark applications, involving many well-known companies in the industry.

The documents also show that the defendant attorney allowed a non-practicing assistant to electronically sign thousands of trademark applications, including sworn statements, rather than signing in person as a signatory, as required by USPTO rules.

Among them, in July 2022, when Attorney CHEN learned that thousands of trademark applications that were not allowed to be signed had been submitted, he did not take any relevant action. His inaction undermined the integrity of the trademark registration, which would result in the trademark registration being deemed invalid ultimately due to failure to comply with the USPTO's signature requirements , and could prevent the registration of legitimate trademarks before then.

At the same time, it was also found that between January 2021 and August 2023 , Attorney CHEN submitted more than 2,000 appearance patent applications to the USPTO, which also involved some well-known companies in the industry.

The document also stated that in most cases, the design patent applications filed by the respondent (attorney CHEN) were written by representatives of foreign intellectual property companies based on templates provided to them by the respondent, but these representatives were not registered practitioners before the USPTO.

As a result, Attorney CHEN will face a 14-month suspension from his profession and will be required to fulfill certain related obligations.

This trademark scandal was mainly directed at a leading service provider in Shanghai.

This is not the first time that the service provider has been exposed to fraud. A few months ago, the trademark represented by the service provider was exposed to fraud.

This thunderstorm caused a lot of losses and impacts:

1. Direct losses: There are tens of thousands of trademarks and design patents involved in this case, which means that this incident will cause huge economic losses;

2. Indirect losses: After the USPTO document takes effect, the trademark/appearance patent involved may be cancelled, which may lead to some platforms taking actions, such as not being allowed to use the trademark.

If the seller needs to re-register the trademark/design patent, the loss is not only the trademark/design patent, but also the intangible loss behind it. Behind this is the countless advertising fees and hard work of the sellers.

So, how should sellers register their own trademarks in the future?

No one can really judge which agency is reliable, so sellers can check whether the agency has relevant records through the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office. Of course, many service providers are not registered, but they can be asked to provide a certificate of a trademark practicing lawyer;

Many sellers operate multiple stores and use multiple trademarks. Therefore, when registering a trademark, try not to find one service provider, but entrust multiple ones to avoid problems with one of them and all trademarks at the same time.

Sources:

https://foiadocuments.uspto.gov/oed/