Helene recently attended an interesting presentation on the topics of application pendency and fraudulent applications put on by the USPTO.

It’s official – the USPTO’s proposal to increase trademark fees has been released and will take effect on January 18, 2025. These changes will increase many trademark fees and has the potential to dramatically increase fees for new applications.

We would like to alert you to a troubling practice at the USPTO that has been brought to our attention. Recently, the attorney of record is NOT being notified when a Petition to Cancel is filed against a registered trademark. This means that the attorney is not notified of the proceeding, only the Registrant directly via the email address used at the time of application.

Although we typically warn clients not to trust any correspondence that purports to be from the USPTO (or other official agency) due to an abundance of scam emails and phone calls, this is an exception. If you receive correspondence from a “uspto.gov” email address and ignore the same, this could result in failing to meet a deadline and default judgement being entered. Due to this issue, we recommend that any email that comes to you from the USPTO indicating that a Petition to Cancel has been filed be forwarded to us AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

In addition, this practice is another reason to ensure that you are entering a good “owner” email address when submitting an application or maintenance document. Using the wrong email address or an email address for a box that is not checked regularly may result in no relevant parties being notified of a cancellation action.

As always, we will keep you updated on any news and developments at the USPTO.

Have you heard?  
 
The USPTO recently released a proposal to substantially increase trademark fees in the upcoming months. If approved, fees are expected to rise as much as 400% (and on average around 50%) beginning in fiscal year 2025 (which starts October 1, 2024). 
 
This is one more reason to initiate any filings that you may be considering early before these fee increases go into effect. This may be particularly relevant for maintenance filings, if the period has opened or will open shortly. 
 
For additional information, please go to https://www.uspto.gov/subscription-center/2024/proposed-trademark-fees-changes-fiscal-year-2025.
 
We will keep you updated on more news from the USPTO in future posts.