With regard to Our Favorite Tribunal, Chief Judge Gerard F. Rogers provided the following information:
- The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board currently has 23 Administrative Judges (plus the Chief Judge and the Deputy Chief Judge) and 13.5 interlocutory attorneys.
- TTAB new case filings are up the first quarter of FY2016 over the numbers from prior year, and are expected to remain up throughout the fiscal year (Oct. - Sept.).
- Notice of Proposed Rulemaking featuring a new Rules package is expected to be published in March. There are four main goals/elements:
- Leverage the use of technology and electronic communications.
- Remove plaintiff’s obligations to serve notice on the defendant.
- Discovery changes, including encouraging earlier completion of discovery and moving the deadline for filing a motion for summary judgment to prior to the first date to serve pre-trial disclosures.
- Add trial testimony efficiencies, for example allowing parties to submit testimony by affidavit (instead of deposition) but subject to possible cross-examination.
- The Board will be doing outreach this spring regarding the new rules.
Text Copyright John L. Welch 2016.
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