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Trump Regulatory Freeze Stalls New USPTO Trademark Use Rule
Practical Law Legal Update w-005-9709 (Approx. 3 pages)
Trump Regulatory Freeze Stalls New USPTO Trademark Use Rule
by Practical Law Intellectual Property & Technology
| Law stated as of 10 Feb 2017 • USA (National/Federal) |
President Trump's January 20, 2017 regulatory freeze has delayed the implementation of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rule amending its examination requirements for affidavits or declarations of use in commerce, continued use, or excusable nonuse filed under Section 8 or Section 71 of the Trademark Act. The revision, originally slated for implementation on February 17, 2017, is now scheduled to take effect on March 21, 2017.
On January 20, 2017, the White House issued a memo entitled "Regulatory Freeze Pending Review" (Memo). Pursuant to the Memo, the USPTO's final rule revising its use requirements for trademark registrations, published in the Federal Register on January 19, 2017, and originally slated to take effect on February 17, 2017 (82 FR 6259-01 (Jan. 19, 2017)), has been delayed for 60 days from the issuance of the Memo for further review. The rule is now scheduled to take effect on March 21, 2017. (82 FR 10273-01 (Feb. 10, 2017).)
For more on the substance of the delayed rule, including details about the USPTO's new audit program calling for additional use evidence for randomly selected Section 8 and 71 filings, see Legal Update, USPTO Publishes Final Rule Facilitating Verification of Certain Trademark Use Claims in Affidavits or Declarations.
For a discussion of the new use requirements and other efforts to reduce the number of unused and overbroad trademark registrations on the US trademark register, see Article, Expert Q&A: Evaluating the USPTO's Efforts to Clean Up the US Trademark Register.