The PTO announced that it will begin sending reminders of maintenance filing deadlines to registrants who provide a valid email address to the PTO.
The USPTO avoids ‚dead wood‘ registrations by requiring declarations of use and renewal documents. This way, marks that are now longer in use in commerce are sorted out. As you may know, registrants are required to file a declaration of use between the fifth and sixth anniversary of their registration, as well as renewals every ten years.
Until now, registrants have received no prompting for these dates and have been required to docket and remember them independently. Now, however, the PTO plans to send email reminders of these filing deadlines. They anticipate that this will reduce the number of registrations which are cancelled for failure to file the required documents.
Despite this new assistance, however, we still recommend that registrants do not rely on this system but independently docket these dates.
Click here to view and revise your email preferences with the USPTO.