A recent report from the United States Government Accountability Office detailed the need for better handling of the fraudulent trademark filings at the USPTO. The report, which was sent to the judiciary committees of the House and Senate, as well as the Secretary Commerce, notes that the GAO recommends “improving USPTO’s fraud risk management to help address the problem” of registrations that “may include false or inaccurate claims and could be fraudulent.”
Some key findings from the report:
- The USPTO has not conducted a comprehensive fraud risk assessment of the trademark register or designed a fraud risk strategy. Implementing leading practices from GAO’s Fraud Risk Framework would allow the USPTO to comprehensively consider fraud risks, establish more effective controls, and fully articulate a tolerable level of fraud risk while considering the costs and benefits of potential control activities. GAO also found that the USPTO’s current data systems do not allow the agency to: (1) assess the effectiveness of current trademark fraud prevention programs and (2) implement new technologies for identifying fraud. Academics told GAO that computational tools such as predictive analytics could help the USPTO identify trademark applications with false or inaccurate information more effectively.
Details and full report from the GAO here: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106533
