Each year, IPWatchdog surveys a panel of intellectual property experts for their long-running "Biggest Moments in IP" series, and partner Dyan Finguerra-DuCharme noted that the USPTO's response to the rise of bad actors in China was at the top of her list in 2019.
Finguerra-DuCharme wrote that "the USPTO took swift action on the trademark side to thwart nefarious conduct stemming from China. In particular, the USPTO enacted new policies and increased internal training to deal with the influx of phony change in correspondent submissions (done to facilitate the high-jacking of brand names on online marketplaces) and the ever-rising submission of doctored specimens."
She specifically noted that the requirement for foreign applicants to engage U.S. counsel has "led to the abandonment of applications with digitally altered specimens or the entry of default judgments in Trademark Trial and Appeal Board proceedings."
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