Trademark Renewal Required to Maintain Your Trademark Registration
Once you successfully register a trademark with the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO), you must stay on top of it in order to maintain that registration. At regular intervals after the mark is registered, you must file, essentially, evidence that you are still using the mark in interstate commerce.
Detroit Trademark Attorneys: Why Must I Prove I Am Still Using a Trademark?
It is important to remember, first, that a trademark, unlike a patent or a copyright, does not give its owner stand-alone protection to the design or mark itself. Trademark registry only protects your right to purvey your product or service in interstate commerce under that name or with that logo and thereby to give consumers a guarantee of the source and quality of the product or service.
If you don’t engage in commerce, you lose your right to the trademark. It is not something you simply “own” for some statutory period of time, as is the case with a copyright.
Detroit Trademark Attorneys: Declaration of Use Must Be Filed
“Declarations of Use” are filed with “intent to use” applications, which are trademark registration applications for the use of marks based on an intent to shortly begin using the mark in interstate commerce, if you haven’t already.
These sorts of Statements of Use must be filed within 6 months of the issuance of the USPTO’s Notice of Allowance.
Post-registration, a Statement of Use must also be filed between the 5th and 6th year after the registration date.
The Statement of Use demonstrates your continuing use of the mark in interstate commerce, requires the inclusion of further specimens and updated information, as well as a filing-fee. It must be properly completed to comply with legal filing requirements.
If it is not timely filed or filed with deficiencies, the USPTO will cause the trademark application to be abandoned.
Detroit Trademark Attorneys: Trademark Renewals Must Also Be Timely Filed
An Application for Renewal must also be filed with the USPTO between the 9th and 10th years following the registration date, and for EVERY 9th-10th year period following.
This is always calculated from the specific registration date.
Failure to file a renewal can result in your mark being canceled.
Noble Path Trademark Law is a boutique US law practice located in Metro Detroit and assisting craft brewers, vintners, distillers, and others in all industries with trademark registration, trademark renewal, trademark monitoring, and Office Action refusal response matters.
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