The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (Trademark Office) recently implemented a new rule effective February 15, 2020, for trademark filings. The rule requires that all trademark filings, including new trademark applications, list the trademark owner’s email address. This email address:
We understand and appreciate that this requirement causes considerable concern for our clients, including:
Comments by U.S. trademark counsel to the Commissioner for Trademarks about this rule are heavy, and the Trademark Office has yet to finalize whether—or to what extent—it may mask the owner’s email address. Notably, the Trademark Office states that it has already taken into account any implications that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may have on implementation of this rule.
Importantly, if we at Warner are your authorized representative before the Trademark Office, the Trademark Office will still use our trademark email address (e.g., trademarks@wnj.com) for its official correspondence. However, an owner’s email address is still required. Accordingly, we will be requesting an appropriate owner’s email address for all of your future filings. In the meantime, if you are a trademark owner, you may want to create an email address to be used for all U.S. Trademark Office filings, for example: trademarks@yourdomain.com.
We will keep you posted of any additional developments. If you have questions or concerns about this new trademark filing rule, please contact Mary Bonnema, Catherine Collins, Scott Keller, Jim Scott, Amber Underhill or your Warner attorney.
