As reported in our previous posts, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, provided relief to trademark applicants and owners by allowing extensions of certain deadlines for several types of filings (i.e. Office Action responses, foreign priority claims, renewals, etc.).  This week, the USPTO decided to grant further relief, on a case-by-case basis, to applicants or registrants who were unable to meet certain types of deadlines to maintain their applications or registrations due to COVID-19.  If you are an applicant or registrant who falls in that category, you can address the missed deadlines as follows:

• File a petition to revive your application if you missed the deadline to respond to an Office communication;
• File a petition to the Director if your application became abandoned as a result of missing the 36-month statutory deadline to file a Statement of Use; and
• File a petition to the Director if you missed the following types of deadlines for your registration: (1) a statutory deadline, leading to a cancelled/expired registration; or (2) a deadline to respond to an Office communication.

 The TEAS forms for the above actions are available here: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/filing-online/petition-forms.  Up until June 30, 2020, the USPTO will waive the fee for petitions to revive applications or reinstate registrations that were abandoned or cancelled/expired due to the impact of COVID-19.  To obtain that fee waiver, you must submit a statement or certification (for a discussions of issues to be aware of when doing so, please see our prior post) indicating that the missed deadline was due to the COVID-19 outbreak.  The usual time limit for revival and reinstatement applies -- the filing has to be made either within two months after the Notice of Abandonment or Notice of Cancellation issues; or, if the notice was not received, no more than six months after the date the application or registration was abandoned or cancelled.