Under US law, to obtain a trademark registration, an Applicant must demonstrate a bona fide use of the mark in the ordinary course of trade. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in trademark applications that falsely claim a bona fide use in trade. As a result, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has been issuing and maintaining registrations for trademarks that should never have issued. When such fraudulent registrations remain on the Trademark […]

In the case of In re Bongiorno, No. 2020-1835, 2021 WL 1997454, at *4 (Fed. Cir. May 19, 2021), patent applicant James Bongiorno appealed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that two of his patent applications were directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under Section 101. Each application related to “planning and executing a vacation or travel itinerary, and more particularly to software and a portable electronic unit, which may be dedicated to such planning […]