Good news for anyone that has registered a trademark. Beginning in January 2015, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) will start providing email reminders to trademark holders that they need to make a filing to maintain their trademarks.
When you register a trademark, you have to file a Declaration of Use between the fifth and sixth year after registration, to maintain that mark. Between the ninth and tenth year after registration, and then every ten years after that, you have to file a Declaration of Use and an Application for Renewal. Up until now, trademark holders had to keep track of those filing dates on their own, maintaining calendars years into the future. The e-mail reminders will make these ongoing maintenance obligations much easier, and help trademark holders avoid having trademarks cancelled for failure to make a filing.
To take advantage of these courtesy reminders, trademark holders should ensure that the USPTO has a valid email address for them at all times. Trademark holders should also add the USPTO to their “safe senders list,” so that courtesy reminders don’t end up in the spam folder. For more information on the courtesy reminders and how to update your email address with the USPTO, you can visit this information link.
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