Miscellaneous Forms
1. Voluntary Amendment Not in Response to USPTO Office Action/Letter [< This is the direct link to the electronic form.]
WARNING: Not every amendment submitted will be acceptable. Although the amendment may be automatically uploaded into the USPTO's databases, the USPTO must examine the amendment to determine whether the proposed change(s) is acceptable. If the amendment is not acceptable, the amendment will be refused and any uploaded data will be deleted from the application/registration record, thereby returning the database to how it appeared prior to the filing of the Voluntary Amendment.
Use this form to request modification and/or addition to an already filed application that the Law Office examining attorney has not yet examined, or in other rare instances (such as to follow a Post-Registration filing--- see below).
Do NOT use this form after the application (1) has been approved for publication; (2) has been published for opposition; (3) if an extension of time to oppose has been filed; or (4) if a notice of allowance has issued. Instead, use the Post-approval/ publication/post-notice of allowance (NOA) amendment form.
The Voluntary Amendment form is appropriate to:
- Request a change to an application prior to examination;
- Request a change to an already-examined application not yet approved for publication, where no other mechanism exists;
- Request a change for an application filed under the Madrid Protocol (Section 66(a) not yet approved for publication, where no other mechanism exists, but only for limited purposes;
- Supplement or modify information already submitted through a Post-Registration filing prior to the Post-Registration Specialist examining the filing. WARNING: If you have not already made a Post-Registration filing, such as a Section 8, and you are merely trying to amend or correct a registration certificate, do NOT use this form. Instead, you must use the Section 7 Request form.
NOTE: Please check all other TEAS forms to see if a more appropriate form should be used instead. If appropriate for use, you must wait approximately 5-7 days after your original submission to file the Voluntary Amendment, to ensure that all of the original application data has been fully loaded into the USPTO’s Trademark Status and Document Retrieval Database.
2. Request For Express Abandonment (Withdrawal) Of Application [< This is the direct link to the electronic form.]
The applicant may use this form to request express abandonment, i.e., withdrawal, of its own pending application.
NOTE: Only the application owner may file a request for express abandonment. The request must be signed by: (1) the applicant; (2) a person(s) with legal authority to bind the applicant, such as a corporate officer of a U.S. corporate applicant or foreign corporation or company; a general partner of a partnership applicant; each joint applicant if joint applicants; an officer of an unincorporated organization; an officer or manager of a limited liability company, etc. See TMEP §§712.01 et seq.; or (3) the applicant's attorney. WARNING: If you are not the proper person to file this form, you risk criminal sanctions for making a fraudulent filing. See 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 (sets forth possible penalties).
An express abandonment may be filed at any time, including if an extension of time to oppose has been filed, unless the application is currently subject to an appeal, opposition, or concurrent use proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. In those cases, you must file this request directly with the Board. You may do so electronically, using the Board's electronic system, ESTTA.
NOTE: Filing of an Express Abandonment does not result in any refund of the original application fee. The fee is an initial processing fee, which is not refunded later, regardless of any expressed intent to cease prosecution of the application.
WARNING: You may file this request up to the point of actual registration. However, if your application is already scheduled for printing of a registration certificate, which occurs approximately eight (8) weeks after the publication date, it may be too late to withdraw the application from the registration cycle. Therefore, although perhaps timely filed, your express abandonment will only be processed after cancellation of the inadvertently issued registration and restoration of your application to pendency; i.e., under this scenario, please be aware that significant delays in processing this filing will occur.
3. Request to Divide Application [< This is the direct link to the electronic form.]
Use this form to request that a pending application be divided into two (2) or more separate applications upon payment of the applicable fees. You may request division of an application for any reason, but a processing fee is due for each new application created. When dividing an application for some, but not all, of the goods or services in a class, this form must be accompanied by the fee for dividing (currently $100) and by an application filing fee (currently $325) for each new separate application created by the division.
NOTE: If you wish to submit a request to divide in conjunction with an Allegation of Use filing, you must use the specific TEAS Allegation of Use form for that purpose, if the request to divide is limited specifically to the creation of only one (1) child application.
WARNING: Filing a request to divide is not, by itself, a proper response to an Office action and does not relieve the duty to respond or take any other required action.
NOTE: To file a “Request to Divide Registration,” see Form # 7 in the overall category “REGISTRATION MAINTENANCE/RENEWAL FORMS” on the TEAS front page.
