Trademark Technical And Conforming Amendment Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we seek to correct a technical and unintentional mistake in the trademark laws that could result in inadvertent abandonment for trademark owners who registered under our international agreement on trademarks, which is called the Madrid Protocol.

At the expiration of their trademark registration term, trademark owners are required to submit affidavits to the United States Patent and Trademark Office stating that they have continuously met the statutory requirements of use in commerce or, alternatively, excusable nonuse.
Such affidavits are essential to maintain current trademark registrations and to clear the register of inactive trademarks. However, due to a technical mistake in the Lanham Act, our trademark laws unintentionally prevent trademark owners who file these affidavits for registering extensions under the Madrid Protocol from having the same rights as other U.S. trademark owners. Compliance with regulations should not reduce the rights of trademark owners. Today, we will harmonize our laws with the Madrid Protocol so that this particular injustice no longer occurs.

Additionally, this legislation gives the Director of the USPTO discretion to allow applicants to correct good-faith and harmless errors that otherwise would have severe and unreasonable intellectual property ramifications. The Intellectual Property Organization and the American Intellectual Property Law Association both support this legislation. In their letter in support of this bill, the American Intellectual Property Law Association stated that this bill is, ``a highly desirable amendment to the Trademark Act,'' and refers to this legislation as a ``cure'' for specific technical inconsistencies for trademark owners.

However, the bill is not perfect. It includes a study provision regarding alleged trademark lawsuit abuse and small businesses. While we don't want to delay the necessary relief to the trademark owner that this bill will provide by immediate passage of S. 2968, the ranking member and I are committed to working with Senator Leahy to refine the text of this study provision at our soonest opportunity.

It is time to finally give our trademark owners who register under the Madrid Protocol the rights they should have had originally. This legislative update accomplishes just that, and bolsters the rights of all U.S. trademark owners.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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