Taps Run Dry in Africa’s Richest City VOA
The industry selling spyware to jealous spouses
Intellectual Property: Stronger Fraud Risk Management Could Improve the Integrity of the Trademark System. Published: Mar 14, 2024. Publicly Released: Mar 14, 2024. “…
The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (TMA) established two new procedures—expungement and reexamination—that allow individuals and businesses to challenge a registered trademark on the basis that it was not used in commerce, as is normally required.
A successful challenge results in the trademark being removed from the register, thus making it available for potential use for the challenger or other applicants. GAO found that from December 2021 through June 2023 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and attorneys representing trademark owners filed nearly 500 petitions under the new procedures. Collectively, these petitions resulted in the removal of more than 2,500 falsely claimed goods and services from the trademark register.
Trademark attorneys told GAO that the new procedures can be cost-effective and low-risk. Existing USPTO programs have also addressed inaccurate or false trademark applications and registrations. The agency’s post registration audit program removed trademarked goods and services in about half of its randomly selected audits each year from the start of the program in 2017.
This suggests that there may be more than 1 million false and inaccurate registrations out of about 2.8 million overall due to an influx of applications, among other factors.”
CRIME PAYS (FOR A WHILE): Glamorous millionaire ‘queenpin’, 53, is accused of running crime ring of 12 women called ‘California Girls’ who stole $8M in cosmetics and designer clothes, storing them in 4,500 sq ft mansion and selling them on Amazon.
Michelle Mack, 53, allegedly paid air fares, hotel bills and car rental costs for up to a dozen operatives, who would post their loot to her home in Bonsall before she sold it on for knock-down prices through a front company on Amazon Marketplace.
Her gang, dubbed the ‘California Girls’ by investigators, operated in more than a dozen states coast to coast, targeting outlets including LensCrafters, Sephora and at least 231 Ulta stores.
Police found a ‘mini-store’ of goods worth $350,000 in a 5am raid on her $3 million home and fear the total hit to retailers may have topped $8 million.
I had been assured by no less and authority than AOC that the country’s shoplifting wave was just desperate Jean Valjeans desperate for loaves of bread to feed their hungry families.
