Happy 4^th of July week!

We’ll stick to the patriotic theme with an explainer on how to find other applicants who have overcome flag-related refusals. Here is the search strategy to focus on applications that have received relatively-uncommon 2(b) refusals, overcome them, and are still on the registry. The “content” field is free-text; it lets us focus on flag refusals rather than insignia:

We can quickly identify more than 150 active third party registrations. Let’s say that our refusal includes a design element for the US flag – let’s limit our search just to American flag refusals that resulted in registrations since 2016.

We quickly identify a number of directly on-point registrations, including the following:  Office Action Response link, Ser. No. 86825429, and  Office Action link, Ser. No. 87315742. These provide a great start. You can further refine the search by focusing on additional “Content” terms that match your situation, e.g. to focus on designs where the flag is at an angle, or a background feature, or etc. Using TM TKO’s Office Action response research tools, you can supplement your TMEP and case-law driven arguments with directly on-point factual comparisons and reasoned decisions from Examining Attorneys.