Intellectual Property Law

* Abandonment:

"An application that has been declared abandoned is 'dead' and no longer pending. Abandonment occurs under several circumstances. The most common reason is when the USPTO does not receive a response to an Office Action letter from an applicant within 6 months from the date the Office action letter was mailed."

This is the Office Action discussed in Friday's post. The USPTO gives the applicant 6 months from the MAILING DATE (NOT the date you received it) to submit a response. You don't do that within 6 months...wave bye bye to your trademark filing. Unless...

"...Applications abandoned for failure to respond to an Office Action...can be revived or reinstated in certain circumstances. For more information, see Petition to Revive and Request for Reinstatement."

* Canceled:

"trademark registration is no longer viable. It may be due to the registrant's failure to file the required continued use affidavit under Section 8 of the Trademark Act, to a cancellation proceeding at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board or to the outcome of a civil court action."

There's 3 main reasons a mark is canceled - (1) the applicant failed to file the necessary forms to keep the mark active; (2) the mark had been opposed lost to the 'other guy'; and (3) the applicant lost a civil court case and has to give up the name altogether.

* Expired:

No USPTO definition available.

If your status is expired, that means some necessary forms were never filed with the USPTO.

Full post as published by TradeMark Express: A Daily Blog on November 14, 2007 (boomark / email).