Wednesday, September 22, 2021

To the government worker being made aware of problems in the system

Utah Department of Commerce

Division of Corporations and Commercial Code

160 East 300 South, 2nd Floor

PO Box 146705

Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-6705

Subject: Making changes to State Trademarks

I initially reached out to the Division of Corporations asking for assistance in changing the titles and/or descriptions of two trademarks that I registered with the state of Utah because the online trademark manager at https://secure.utah.gov/account/log-in.html does not allow a registrant to make such changes.

In response to my query, I was provided a link to a form at https://corporations.utah.gov/pdf/tmricf.pdf but it does not appear to include any fields to make changes to the title or description of a trademark. I was subsequently referred to the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of the state’s Trademark page at https://corporations.utah.gov/business/tm.html.

The answers to two (2) of the “Frequently Asked Questions” appear to be the source of some confusion.*

The answer to the question “How to make changes to or update a Trademark?” Consists of three sentences. The first sentence—as currently written—states:

“You can make changes to or update a Trademark by updating the business entity that owns the Trademark.”

A period (.) at the end of a sentence is also referred to as “a full stop” because that’s the point where one is supposed to stop reading. So that’s what I did before attempting to “make changes to or update [the] Trademarks” by logging into the Business Renewal page at https://secure.utah.gov/abr/login.html using my access ID for my business. Unfortunately, I did not see anything related to trademarks or how to make changes to them.

Of course, the answer to that first question contained two additional—and much more specific—sentences that explained why I was not able to do what I wanted:

“You can make changes to the principals of the Trademark by completing a Registration Information Change form. If you wish to change the owner(s) you will need to file an Assignment of Utah Trademark.” (emphasis added).

The first sentence—in isolation—can be inferred to mean that one can make any number of changes to a trademark. The second and third sentences serve to contradict such an inference—which can be avoided entirely by simply deleting that first superfluous sentence.

The answer to the next question, “How to amend/merge/convert a Trademark?”—as currently written—states:

“You can not amend/merge/convert a Trademark”(sic)† (emphasis added)

Thus reinforcing the idea that any amendments (i.e. “changes” to anything other than the “principals” or “owners”) are not permitted.

Grammatically speaking, the verbs “to change” and “to amend” are synonyms. One may surmise—within the context of what’s permissible under Utah statutes—that in regard to state-registered trademarks that is not the case.

In the interest of avoiding future confusion on the part of Trademark registrants, I would like to suggest that the question related to making “…changes to or updat[ing] a Trademark?” be modified to more clearly indicate that changes can only be made to identify the registered principals and/or owners.

Additional editorial suggestions are addressed above and in the footnotes.


Sincerely,

[signed]

Joseph L. Puente

Business Owner


* It should be noted that all of the “Frequently Asked Questions” are worded as statements. Punctuating a statement with a question mark does not transform said statement into a question. Instead, it suggests that the individual making the statement is very confused as to whether or not they actually understand or believe what they’re stating. For example: “I live in Salt Lake City” is a definitive statement. Whereas "I live in Salt Lake City?” suggests that I’m not entirely sure if I live in Salt Lake City or not—perhaps I was told that I live there but was not provided with any supporting evidence, causing me to maintain some measure of uncertainty.


† “can not” is technically acceptable but “cannot” is much more common.