Anatomy of a FOIA Request: USPTO Trademark Litigation Tactics Comments

I recently made a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the USPTO for comments and communications related to the Trademark Litigation Tactics survey (a.k.a. “trademark bullies” study).  The USPTO’s report, under the law passed last year, was recently due to Congress. To date, neither the USPTO nor Congress has published the study.

With an interest in obtaining as much information as possible about the study and the comments, on January 25, 2011 I submitted the following FOIA request to the USPTO:

[scribd id=51705171 key=key-12d5b236551zgl7ebcs9 mode=list]

A few weeks back, after paying a copying fee to the USPTO, I got back this a package containing about 300 pages of materials, including the cover letter below from the USPTO FOIA officer:

[scribd id=51677656 key=key-2bnrooj2ie7s2q98conc mode=list]

Tomorrow, I will post links to the comments which were included in the FOIA package from the USPTO, including those from:

– John A. Clifford (Attorney)

– eBay

– Fancaster

– GoDaddy

– Internet Commerce Association

– Internet Commerce Coalition

– Lara Pearson (Attorney)

– Professor J. Thomas McCarthy

– Rock Art Brewery

– Victor Mosely

– and more