Weekly IP Buzz for the Week Ending July 9, 2021
In this week's post, we see that the U.S. Trademark Office is experiencing delays as applications grow by 60% since the beginning of 2021.
Expect Your U.S. Trademark Application to be Delayed by at Least Half a Year
The United States has slowly been reopening across the nation, and with it, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") has seen trying to catch up to the surge in intellectual property applications since the beginning of 2021. In fact, the U.S has reported an almost 60% increase in trademark application filings.
The surge in trademark applications at the U.S. Trademark Office have predominantly resulted from growth in e-commerce. Less explosive growth was experienced in entertainment sectors that saw significant growth in streaming services and expanded content offerings. For example, Disney has seen significant return in taking their Marvel Universe offerings to their streaming platform of Disney+. The success of shows like WandaVision and Loki were widespread enough that there were rumors that Disney had tried to trademark Loki, a god of Norse mythology, with petitions on Change.org receiving thousands of signatures to stop such an endeavor. (Disney eventually released a statement that they had no intentions of trademarking Loki.)
Read more here.
Click to read the previous Weekly IP Buzz on Thriving Attorney.
For more posts, see our Ideate blog for the latest news and insights into law, business, and culture.
--------
In addition to publishing Thriving Attorney, Darin M. Klemchuk is founder of Klemchuk LLP, a litigation, intellectual property, and transactional law firm located in Dallas, Texas. Click to read more about Darin Klemchuk's practice as an intellectual property lawyer. For more on the latest developments in IP law, see the blogs Ideate and IP Questions Answered.