“Last week, we noted that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had issued an initial office action denying Apple’s application for a trademark on the term ‘iPad mini,'” Eric Slivka reports for MacRumors.
“The examiner’s primary objection to Apple’s application related to all of the elements of the ‘iPad mini’ name having been judged as descriptive rather than contributing to a unique product name,” Slivka reports. “A second objection related to Apple’s use of the iPad mini overview page as its specimen proving that the named product was being offered for sale.”
Slivka reports, “Based on a newly published office action from the USPTO, dated last Wednesday, the issue has in fact mostly been resolved without Apple having had to address the examiner’s objections. Presumably responding to the publicity surrounding the initial decision, the USPTO has preemptively withdrawn its two main objections to Apple’s objections.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Congrats to the JUCO dropout, er… USPTO reviewer on seeing the light.
Related article:
USPTO denies Apple request for ‘iPad mini’ trademark – March 31, 2013
One more job opening at USTPO 🙂
Let’s hope it’s a management job. What a hell hole.
@MDN:
Your take here is juvenile, as it usually is regarding legal matters, administrative actions, and the host of other things of which you lack an understanding.
@the dullards who will comment to insult the USPTO for following its review process without bias:
Nothing, because there’s no room for reason in your thinking.
“… there’s no room for reason in your thinking”
Apple appears to have not supplied any new information, so kindly explain what reasoning has prompted this reversal within just a week ?
It is a process. Do you see how it’s working without Apple having to do anything besides their initial submission? My comment is to those (like the above) who suggest someone should be fired or the USPTO is inept. It’s a process; save your bitching for when it is complete. That’s what Apple is doing, because they understand it. There is no need for criticism at this point. It is actually working.
I concur, Ace. Some mistakes are dumber than others and this iPad mini was admittedly a head-scratcher. But organizations are made up of people, and people make mistakes. That is particularly true if the employees are overburdened and overworked. Both in the private sector and in the government, people are expected to produce more with less.
Far too many of you gripe and moan and place all of the blame on the “government” or other organization. The implication is that you would do better in that position, which I seriously doubt is true, in general. The other implication is that we would be better off without the government organization in question, which is also generally not true. Granted, some government organizations are in need of streamlining, but outright abolishment is not always the right answer. I wonder how you would feel if every mistake that you gripers make were posted online…
USPTO – Office of Patent Trolls & Ogres.
Mini Minded USPTO
The writer must have a law degree. Let’s see, I could say this one sentence or I could write a collection of words that says the same thing.
Clearly, the USPTO has routine procedures that must be followed by examiners and a review process that empowers supervisors to make adjustments as needed. This is much ado about nothing, but for a short time, it was newsy.
It was all a ploy: The examiner had an iPad but wanted an iPad mini. So the examiner denied Apple’s trademark request using the “distinctive” clause. Examiner’s boss purchased an iPad mini, handed it to the examiner and asked, “If, after a week, you still feel ‘mini’ is merely descriptive rather than a new product, I will back your decision to deny.”
What we want to know now is who gets to keep the iPad mini: The boss or the examiner?
I bet the last name of the original reviewer was “Kim”.