Bloomberg Law recently observed:The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is well aware of the problem. To explain the rationale for recent rule changes implementing the Trademark Modernization Act (TMA) of 2020, the USPTO explains on its website:Many of the substantive provisions of the TMA trace their origin to a July 18, 2019, hearing before the United States House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet on the subject of “clutter,” or “deadwood,” on the USPTO’s trademark registers. Mary Dennison, the Commissioner of Trademarks at that time, testified. Her testimony highlighted the use-in-commerce-based concerns underlying the most significant provisions of the TMA:The problem is not entirely new or limited to bad actors engaged in egregious fraud. A 2014 USPTO study concluded that roughly half of the surveyed registrations identified goods or services that were not used in commerce. The USPTO’s Report on the survey explained that the USPTO randomly selected 500 registrations (a significant sample) to participate in the pilot study.