The Trademark Law Treaty Implementation Act (TLTIA) has several important changes that trademark owners, practitioners and litigators should know. The following are important provisions of the act that can impact your mark(s):
1) the requirement in section 1(a) and 1(b) for the applicant to state the mode or manner in which the mark is to be used or in connection with goods is eliminated;
2) an application based on foreign trademark no longer has to be accompanied by a certificate or certified copy of the foreign registration at the time of filing is eliminated;
3) to revive an application under 12 (b) the applicant must now demonstrate an unintentional delay in filing a untimely response to an Office Action instead of showing an unavoidable delay; and
4) a section 8 affidavit of continued use or excusable nonuse must be filed in the 9th year of mark’s registration and every ten years thereafter. Section 9 no longer requires a declaration of continued use or excusable nonuse in a renewal application. Thus, every tenth year, the owner of a registration must file both a §8 affidavit and a §9 renewal application. However, a section §8 affidavit must still be filed between the fifth and sixth year after the date of registration.
For additional changes see: tlt_summ
