USPTO Announces Appointment of New Commissioner of Trademarks

by Christina Frangiosa

The USPTO has just announced that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross appointed a new Commissioner of Trademarks, David Gooder, who is scheduled to start on March 2, 2020. The prior Commissioner, Mary Boney Denison, retired at the end of 2019, before a successor had been named. (See TPAC Annual Report, 2019 at 3.) As a result, Deputy Commissioner, Meryl Hershkowitz, has been serving in the position of Acting Commissioner since January 1, 2020.

According to the USPTO’s February 5, 2020 press release, Mr. Gooder previously served as Chief Trademark Counsel for Brown-Forman Corporation and previously as Managing Director and Chief Trademark Counsel at Jack Daniel’s Properties. Before that, he practiced “trademark, copyright and entertainment law at Graham & James in Los Angeles and Luce Forward in San Diego.” (See Press Release.)

On Friday, February 7, the USPTO will hold its quarterly Trademark Public Advisory Committee meeting – which currently shows Deputy Commissioner Meryl Hershowitz as providing the operations update for the Trademark Office. We assume that there will be some mention of Mr. Gooder’s appointment and an identification of some of the initiatives that he would be addressing when he assumes his role.

We also note that the Trademark Office recently postponed the implementation of the Mandatory Electronic Filing Rule until February 15, 2020 and previously announced that it would be providing guidance to the Trademark bar about how this rule will affect specific practices, such as providing direct email addresses and phone numbers for trademark owners. (See December 10, 2019 Webinar on the impact of the mandatory electronic filing rule change).

For reference, the USPTO posts notices of changes to its trademark practice rules on its Recent Postings page, but the pertinent ones relating to the Mandatory Electronic Filing Rule and the Mandatory U.S. Counsel Rule are linked below.

MANDATORY ELECTRONIC FILING RULE

MANDATORY US COUNSEL RULE

  • Requirement of U.S. Licensed Attorney for Foreign Trademark Applicants and Registrants 31498-31511 [2019-14087] [Electronic version][PDF] (2Jul2019)
  • Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Requirement of U.S. Licensed Attorney for Foreign Trademark Applicants and Registrants, 4393–4403 [2019–02154] [TEXT] [PDF] (15Feb2019)