Pursuant to the 2020 Trademark Modernization Act (TMA), the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report examining fraud at the U.S.Trademark Office. The GAO made recommendations to the Trademark Office to reduce the number of fraudulent trademark registrations. The GAO reviewed the impact of changes made by the TMA and stated:
Based on our analysis of USPTO data for the period December
21, 2021, through June 27, 2023, we found that the USPTO Director and trademark
attorneys representing their clients used the TMA’s new expungement and
reexamination procedures to remove 2,615 falsely or inaccurately claimed goods
and services from trademark registrations. Specifically: • Reexamination
proceedings accounted for 1,955 of the removals compared to 660 removals
resulting from expungement proceedings (see fig. 4). • Director-initiated proceedings
accounted for 592 of the removals and third-party petitions accounted for 2,023
of the removals.
The GAO recommendations provide:
Recommendation 1: The Commissioner for Trademarks should plan
and conduct regular fraud risk assessments of the trademark register to
determine a fraud risk profile that aligns with leading practices in the Fraud
Risk Framework. Specifically, this process should include (1) identifying
inherent fraud risks to the trademark register, (2) assessing the likelihood
and impact of inherent fraud risks, (3) determining fraud risk tolerance, (4)
examining the suitability of existing fraud controls, and (5) documenting the
fraud risk profile. Recommendation 2: The Commissioner for Trademarks should
identify and implement improvements to current data systems to strengthen
trademark data analytics for stronger fraud risk management.
The report also discusses other methods the U.S. Trademark
Office uses to detect fraud such as post registration audits.
