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When the US Government Suddenly Cancelled Valiant's Shadowman Trademark
A lot of companies put a lot of stock in registering trademarks. Just look at the court case going on right now between San Diego Comic-Con and Salt Lake Comic Con. And we have some intriguing pieces about that to run later today.
But not everything always goes according to plan. And regarding the Shadowman trademark from Valiant Entertainment… looks like something went a little wrong….
Recently it was discovered that a Section 8 Declaration was not timely filed in 2014 by the prior attorney for applicant in support of the registration, despite the USPTO records indicating that the registration was still valid.
On September 15, 2017, applicant's current attorney spoke to the Post Registration department at the USPTO to determine if the registration was still valid as the USPTO online records indicated. The USPTO representative confirmed that a filing was made by the prior attorney during the time period the Section 8 declaration was due, but did not include a Section 8 declaration.
She also confirmed that the USPTO never issued a notice of cancellation in connection with the registration and that not marking the registration as cancelled was an oversight by the USPTO.
Accordingly, she indicated that she was going to immediately change the status of the registration to indicate it was cancelled and recommended that applicant file a new application to register its trademark along with a Request to Make Special. Applicant has continuously used its SHADOWMAN trademark with class 16 goods and had no intention of not maintaining and allowing its trademark registration for SHADOWMAN in Class 16 to go abandon.
Accordingly, applicant respectfully requests the USPTO to immediately review applicant's new Class 16 application for the trademark. Please contact applicant's current attorney of record, Nancy Zoubek, with any questions.
And now it's back on! With a request to "make special"! I'm sure the USPTO regrets the error…
