Let me state my point a bit clearer for you all:
The USPTO defines a
complaint in this manner:
Patent Litigation - I've Been Sued...
What can we gather from this? Well, we can gather two things. The first is that a complaint for the USPTO is not just some guy phoning in to tell them how he feels about the Redskins or for that matter any trademark. The second is that a lawsuit, at least for the USPTO, has two component. The first is
a complaint and the second is
a summons.
Now, if we go back to 1992:
Washington Redskins name controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In short, in 1992, a lawsuit was brought to the USPTO. That lawsuit
included a complaint and a summons. However, how do we know PolitiFact isn't talking about some guy just spouting off his mouth? Well - the real question is - even if they did mean it, would it change anything in this issue? Of course not. Why? Well, as per the admission of the USPTO:
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received zero complaints about Washington Redskins, bloggers say | PunditFact
So... the Washington Post is wrong because it fails to mention that in 1992 there was a lawsuit for just this very issue. That lawsuit required a complaint. However, even if the Washington Post hadn't been wrong (which it is as there was a lawsuit in 1992) and people had sent in 1,000,000 letters to complain about the Redskins, the USPTO wouldn't really have cared because that's not how they work.
They could have gotten a few thousand letters per second on the matter and as long as it's not a formally drawn document (like the one used by Susan Shown Harjo in 1992), the USPTO would simply file under paper to be recycled.
Conclusion:
This is a case where a few
facts have been brought to the light. The first is that you has no clue how the USPTO works. The second is that the Washington Times in an attempt to draw in readers ignored the fact that even if those 13 pages it found had been filled with complaints, not a single one would have mattered to the USPTO unless they were the type brought by the Harjo in 1992. Again, this is you trying to play
gotcha about something you clearly don't understand to begin with. It's this simple Grim17:
1. The USPTO doesn't take into consideration
public complaints (this type: Omgz zee Redskins) when deciding policy or whether it will deny/approve new trademarks.
2. Any lawsuit it examines needs to have two things (
a complaint and a summons).
3. There have been 2 lawsuits on this matter. The first in 1992, the second in 2013. For those to happen, there
needed to be complaints. That makes PolitiFact's assertion on there being
complaints to be true.
Please Grim17, you're showing you clearly have no clue what you're discussing.