Response to Office Action Form
Use this form to respond to an Office Action that a Law Office examining attorney has issued, based on an application or Statement of Use; or, to pay an additional fee. Do not use this form to respond to any actions mailed after the mark is published and/or registered, as they are issued by the Intent-to-Use (ITU) or Post-Registration units. Forms for that purpose will be available in the future. Until then, you must submit responses to those types of actions via regular mail. Also, if the original application was filed under Section 1(b), Intent to Use, this form is not the correct method for now making use dates of record. You must file an Allegation of Use form.
If you have received an Office Action from an examining attorney regarding your application, either in the form of a letter or a Priority Action, you must respond within six (6) months of the mailing date of the action, or your application will be abandoned. (If it is a Priority Action, a response within two (2) months will give you priority handling; however, you do have the full six (6) month response period, if necessary). This means that your response must arrive on the USPTO server prior to Midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on the last day of the response period- any problem with transmission will not excuse an untimely response. Should the last day of the response period fall on a Saturday, Sunday or U.S. Federal Holiday, you may then submit your response prior to Midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on the next regular business day. You should respond to each point raised in the Office Action Form fully and completely.
On the other hand, if prior to receiving an Office Action, you wish to amend or supplement your original filing, you may submit a Preliminary Amendment form. However, please note that you must wait approximately 15-30 days after your original submission to file the Preliminary Amendment, because the original application data must first be fully loaded into the USPTO's TARR database.
PLEASE NOTE: Responses to Office Actions on applications filed under the Madrid Protocol (Section 66(a)) CANNOT currently be filed via TEAS.