How do I change my address with the Trademark Office? Well, not surprisingly, there is a form for that. It’s called the Change of Address or Representation form. And you can find that just by searching on the USPTO website at USPTO dot gov. There is a form that you’ll need to fill out and probably pay a fee. They just changed all the fees in January, so I’m not sure what the fee is, but they’re usually not outrageous. So you’ll pay a fee, the records will be changed.
And then if something comes up, the PTO Patent and Trademark Office will know how to contact you. Now, why is it so important to keep your address, both your mailing address and your email address up to date with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office? Well, because sometimes actions are filed against your trademark registration or you may also receive renewal notices. So sometimes people challenge the validity of your trademark registration. And when they do that, they file an action called a cancellation.
That’s pretty serious stuff. And you’ll surely want to be notified that. But we can’t notify you if we don’t have your proper address. So the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is very likely going to send a notice of this action to the address that you have on file and probably to your email address of record as well. But if those aren’t right, then obviously you can’t get those notices. Now, when someone files a cancelation, they have to serve you and they usually serve you at the address of record in the trademark database.
But if that’s wrong, again, you’re not going to get that notice. And so your trademark rights may be challenged and then your time to reply may lapse without you even realizing that anything bad has happened. You may get a nasty surprise when you go to renew later and find that your trademark has been unceremoniously canceled. That could be quite a mess to unravel and quite expensive as well. So it’s probably just a lot easier to keep your address of record up to date.
The other thing that you’ll want to get notifications about are renewals now at the five year mark and then at the 10 year mark. And then every 10 years thereafter, if you’re still using your trademark, you will want to file the renewal papers.
And the Trademark Office does send you a courtesy notice of that need for renewal. But again, they send it to the address that you have on file. So if they have the wrong address, be it the email address or the physical address, if they can’t find you those addresses that they have on file, then you’re not going to get the notice and your trademark rights may lapse because they’re canceled for nonrenewable. So it behooves you as a trademark registrant to keep all of those addresses with the Patent and Trademark Office up to date so that you can receive notices of renewal and oppositions and cancelations and anything else that you need to hear about that may affect your trademark rights.
You can find me. Angela Langlotz online at trademark Dr. Dot Net. I’m also on YouTube. I’ve got a huge channel there with almost 500 videos on it. You can find me there at video dot trademark, Dr. Dot Net Forward Slash YouTube. I am also on Facebook at Facebook, dot com forward slash trademark doctor. Ask me any trademark questions in the comments.
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