US Patent and Trademark Office confirms another leak of filers’ address data

The federal government agency responsible for granting patents and trademarks is alerting thousands of filers whose private addresses were exposed following a second data spill in as many years.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) said in an email to affected trademark applicants this week that their private domicile address — which can include their home address — appeared in public records between August 23, 2023 and April 19, 2024.

U.S. trademark law requires that applicants include a private address when filing their paperwork with the agency to prevent fraudulent trademark filings.

USPTO said that while no addresses appeared in regular searches on the agency’s website, about 14,000 applicants’ private addresses were included in bulk datasets that USPTO publishes online to aid academic and economic research.

The agency took blame for the incident, saying the addresses were “inadvertently exposed as we transitioned to a new IT system,” according to the email to affected applicants, which TechCrunch obtained. “Importantly, this incident was not the result of malicious activity,” the email said. 

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