On December 18, 2021, regulations implementing the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 went into effect.  According to the USPTO’s website, the changes provide individuals, businesses, and the USPTO with “new tools to clear away unused registered trademarks from the federal trademark register” and give the USPTO “the ability to move applications through the registration process more efficiently.”

Summaries of the new procedures and the changes to existing procedures are located on the USPTO’s website, and we previously blogged about them here and here. As a reminder, the final rule (available here) went into effect on December 18, 2021, except for the implementation of the shorter response period for Office Actions, which does not go into effect until December 1, 2022.  According to the USPTO, petitions requesting institution of proceedings for reexamination or expungement will be accepted on or after December 27, 2021.

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