Trademark administrators discuss new resources, J Scott Evans’ bacon

Susan Brady Blasco announced that INTA has launched a new chapter for the Trademark Administration Handbook covering brand protection on the Internet. The chapter is the result of more than three years of work by chapter author Brian J. Winterfeldt as well as other contributors and members of the Committee.

Brady Blasco said that the Handbook has always been “an extremely valuable resource”, but noted that now that the Handbook is available online it is even more useful. One feature that she highlighted is that the Handbook now contains numerous links to other resources, including the OHIM and USPTO websites. This feature, she noted, will help trademark administrators access even more of the information they need in their day-to-day practice.

“This is not just meant for trademark administrators even though it is called the Trademark Administration Handbook,” Brady Blasco said. “It’s really meant for all legal practitioners.”

In addition to the Handbook, the Committee also announced that INTA will be hosting its first Trademark Administrators and Practitioners Meeting (TMAP) outside the U.S. in October. TMAP co-chair Diane Lau of the Committee announced that the Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) has partnered with INTA to host the meeting in Alicante, Spain.

Lau pointed out that the three-day program will cover many timely issues, such as the most recent changes to the EU regulations and directives, and developments in Canadian trademark law. There will also be question and answer sessions with OHIM officials and examiners.

“To attend a meeting that is being held at OHIM and to be able to have conversations with the relevant officials, I think it really might just be a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Lau said.

Registration for the Trademark Administrators and Practitioners Meeting is now open at the Annual Meeting onsite registration desk as well as on the INTA website.

The backbone

In addition to launching these new programs, both INTA CEO Etienne Sanz de Acedo and INTA President J. Scott Evans took to the podium to thank trademark administrators for their hard work. In particular, Evans praised trademark administrators and paralegals as “the backbone of any trademark practice” and that the ones that he works with have proved to be invaluable colleagues.

“I just can’t tell you how often trademark administrators and paralegals have saved my bacon,” he explained. “Just this morning I was giving a presentation to outside counsel and I had to have my senior paralegal come up and save me, because I’m a lawyer who works for a technology company, I am not a technologist; and it was very clear as I was trying to transition from a video to a PowerPoint.”

“So we all really appreciate all the things that you do.”

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