Attend live hearings at the PTAB/TTAB Stadium Tour In Chicago

A live PTAB and TTAB proceedings on Thursday, October 3 at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago. Opening remarks start at 10 a.m. CT. This event will include a trademark opposition hearing, an AIA trial hearing, and an educational session where Board judges will share tips for successful advocacy before the TTAB and PTAB.

This program is for patent and trademark attorneys who appear in front of the PTAB and/or TTAB as well as those who want to learn about practice before these administrative tribunals. This program is free and open to the public. Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits will be offered.

Get detailed information on the event page to view the program location, program agenda, and law school venue. 

Webinar on filing patent applications electronically using DOCX

Join us for a Patent Quality Chat webinar on September 24, from noon to 1 p.m. ET. During this online-only webinar, we’ll discuss filing structured text (DOCX) as an efficient way to file a patent application electronically. You’ll learn what structured text is and how you can use it to file nonprovisional utility applications.

The webinar is free and open to all. Registration is not necessary. There will be a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. Please email questions before or during the webinar to PatentQuality@uspto.gov.

Find more information about this webinar on our event page.

The USPTO presents the Patent Quality Chat webinar series as a part of continuous efforts to improve patent quality.

Help improve DOCX application submissions

As a part of the eCommerce Modernization effort (eMod), you are now able to file new utility applications in the structured text format, DOCX. As we continue to make improvements to our systems, we invite you to participate in a brief survey to provide your input on this change. 

Take the survey here. 

Your feedback is valuable to us and your participation shapes the future of our systems at the USPTO. Please respond by September 6.

More information is available on the DOCX webpage.

PTAB “Boardside Chat” Webinar

The next USPTO "Boardside Chat" will be on Thursday, August 22, 2019, from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time. The topic will be about hearings, including both appeal and AIA hearings.

To connect to the chat, please visit: PTAB Boardside Chat Webinar

U.S. lawyers: Beware of unauthorized withdrawal and revocation of attorney forms

What’s happening Bad actors are making unauthorized changes to attorney information using Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) withdrawal and revocation of attorney forms by:

• Signing the attorney of record’s name
• Resetting the correspondence address to the applicant’s address in the initial application
• Replacing the primary correspondence email address with the bad actor’s email address or deleting the email address

What we’ll do When we receive a request to change the primary email correspondence address of record, we’ll send an email to the prior primary email correspondence address to alert the attorney. Look for an email message from TEAS@uspto.gov with the subject line "Alert USPTO Change of Email Address" notifying you of changes to the primary email correspondence address in your cases.

What you should do

• Monitor your cases for unauthorized changes
• Turn on email notifications for your MyUSPTO.gov trademark docket
• Report unauthorized changes using these instructions

Keep contact info updated Bad actors appear primarily to be targeting registrations that don’t include a correspondence email address. You won’t receive a change of address alert if you don’t have a correspondence email address on record. Avoid this problem by ensuring that your registrations contain current contact information.

Future plansWe’re implementing a login requirement this fall to combat this problem.