Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

News & notices

USPTO notices regarding COVID-19 and CARES Act extensions of deadlines

USPTO notices regarding COVID-19: All USPTO notices are available.
Extension of Deadlines under the CARES Act: Trademarks and TTAB FAQs.
In person interviews, hearings and meetings unavailable: TTAB oral hearings to take place at USPTO offices on or after Friday, March 13, 2020 will be conducted remotely by video or telephone. Parties will receive further instructions on how to participate by video or telephone in advance of the interview, hearing, or meeting. If you have questions, please contact TTABHearings@uspto.gov or call 571-272-8500. Information about trademark examining attorney interviews, patent examiner interviews and PTAB oral hearings is available.

ESTTA updates - submit or update your bar membership information

As of July 2, 2020, when parties are foreign-domiciled, ESTTA defaults to the attorney correspondence screen which requires U.S.-licensed attorneys to submit bar membership information in the following forms: notice of opposition, petition to cancel, notice of appeal, request for extension of time to oppose or Change of Address. When representing U.S.-domiciled parties, you must check the "Party is represented by an attorney" checkbox on the applicable ESTTA screen. Bar information is masked from TTABVUE.

Other updates:

Submit or update your primary or secondary email addresses using the Change of Address form
ESTTA and filing assistance: Preview all forms and get filing help using our help pages: Choosing an ESTTA form, Initiating a new proceeding and Filing a submission in an existing proceeding

TTAB Reading Room, TBMP update and other TTAB news

TTAB Reading Room available: On July 31, TTAB deployed its new Reading Room, which replaces the former TTAB e-FOIA webpage. Use the Reading Room to search TTAB final decisions and precedential orders. You can search cases by date, issue, and other criteria. You can also search by language within the decision. Please send comments, questions, and suggestions to TTABFeedback@uspto.gov. We'll consider your feedback for future releases.
TBMP 2020 update available: The June 2020 update of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Manual of Procedure (TBMP) is now available. The revision describes current practice and procedure under the applicable authority and relevant case law reported between March 1, 2019, and February 29, 2020.
Standard Protective Order: An updated Standard Protective Order (SPO) is in place for all TTAB proceedings except those that have a stipulated protective agreement, approved by the Board, entered into the proceeding. Over the past two years, TTAB and stakeholders engaged in a discussion of possible changes to the SPO. The discussion focused on whether to allow in-house counsel access to materials designated "Confidential - For Attorneys' Eyes Only" (Trade Secret/Commercially Sensitive). The results were evenly split. As a result, there are no substantive changes from the SPO that was previously in effect. The New SPO is amended with minor changes to wording for readability and clarity. The New SPO is effective February 5, 2020.
Requirement for U.S.-licensed attorney: Change in federal trademark regulations requires foreign-domiciled trademark applicants, registrants, and parties to Trademark Trial and Appeal Board proceedings to hire a U.S.-licensed attorney to represent them at the USPTO. For more information, visit our page on the USPTO website.
Expedited cancellation program: In March of 2018, the TTAB began a pilot program to expedite certain cancellation cases involving only nonuse and/or abandonment claims. The pilot program was developed after careful consideration of public comments on proposals for a streamlined cancellation proceeding. Visit our new web page to get more information about the expedited cancellation program, including background, goals, how it works and how to elect to participate.
Monitor TTABVUE: Most submissions from the Electronic System for Trademark Trials and Appeals (ESTTA) are automatically uploaded to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Inquiry System (TTABVUE). However, system errors do occasionally occur and could cause major delays in instituting your TTAB proceeding. When you file in ESTTA, monitor TTABVUE to make sure your submission is uploaded. If you don’t see your submission a week after you file, contact TTAB for assistance, 571-272-8500, Mon-Fri 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
TTAB Dashboard: Updated quarterly, our dashboard displays current proceeding pendency. Send comments to TTABdashboard@uspto.gov.

Policies & procedures

TTAB Manual of Procedure "TBMP" [e-version] (Current)
TTAB Manual of Procedure "TBMP" [PDF] (Current)
Selection of precedential decisions
Ethics guidance
Fees & payment information
TTAB phone conferencing
Comment on the TTAB policy
FAQs

Online systems

Alternate resolution options

Accelerated Case Resolution (ACR)
- Make a suggestion: ACRsuggestions@uspto.gov
ACR Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Stakeholder outreach

Public comments on streamlined version of trademark cancellation proceedings. For more information, see the full notice in the Federal Register, 82 Fed. Reg. 22517. The comment period closed on August 14, 2017.

Standard documents & guidelines

See ESTTA homepage for online forms and suggested format for Oppositions and Cancellations
Standard Protective Order - Effective February 5, 2020
Acknowledgement of Protective Agreement

Board receipts & issued decisions

View TTAB's Dashboard for pendency measures and inventory of contested motions and final decisions
- Make a suggestion or comment on TTAB's dashboard: TTABdashboard@uspto.gov.
View TTAB's new filing statistics and performance measures
Search TTAB’s final decisions and precedential orders
Selection of precedential decisions

Rules/laws

Hearing information

About the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board

The TTAB is an administrative board that hears and decides adversary proceedings between two parties, namely, oppositions (party opposes a mark after publication in the Official Gazette ) and cancellations (party seeks to cancel an existing registration). The TTAB also handles interference and concurrent use proceedings, as well as appeals of final refusals issued by USPTO Trademark Examining Attorneys within the course of the prosecution of trademark applications.

The Chief Administrative Trademark Judge is Gerard F. Rogers. The TTAB Video, No. 13, provides an overview of proceedings before the TTAB.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Manual of Procedure

The TBMP provides practitioners with basic information generally useful for litigating cases before the TTAB. The manual does not modify, amend, or serve as a substitute for any existing statutes, rules, or decisional law and is not binding upon the TTAB, its reviewing courts, the Director of the USPTO, or any part of the USPTO. Rather, the TBMP merely describes current practice and procedure under the applicable authority, as of the manual's issue date.

The most recent version of the TBMP may be accessed from the TTAB website under "Policies, Procedures and FAQs." Earlier editions of the TBMP are posted under TTAB Manual of Procedure "TBMP" archives in the Archives section of this page.

Electronic System for Trademark Trial and Appeals "ESTTA"

Use ESTTA to institute new TTAB proceedings and file documents in existing TTAB proceedings online. Filing online using ESTTA is mandatory for TTAB proceedings. SYSTEM AVAILABILITY: Check current system status and planned outages before beginning the filing process. Because unexpected problems can occur, you should keep filing deadlines in mind and allow plenty of time to resolve any issue which might arise. The Board will provide general assistance to ESTTA filers (see contact information below), but we cannot guarantee that any problem will be resolved prior to a deadline. Submissions filed in paper form are permitted only when ESTTA is unavailable due to technical problems, or when extraordinary circumstances are present. Users should not anticipate that the Board will extend a deadline because it was not possible to submit a filing by ESTTA on the due date.

A paper-filed request for extension of time to file an opposition, a notice of opposition, a petition to cancel, or answer requires a petition to the Director and the requisite petition fee, while other paper-filed submissions require only an explanation of the technical difficulties or extraordinary circumstances.

Requests for time extensions to oppose Madrid Protocol-based applications or oppositions thereto cannot be filed in paper form under any circumstances.

View ESTTA technical requirements and pre-filing information and get help on choosing your ESTTA form.

Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Inquiry System "TTABVUE"

Use TTABVUE to view a TTAB proceeding file by entering the proceeding number, or search for proceedings by application number, registration number, mark, party, correspondent.

Attachments submitted by the public may not be accessible to individuals using assistive technology. If you cannot access any content due to a disability or have any questions, please contact the TTAB Assistance Center by email at TTABInfo@uspto.gov or phone at 571-272-8500, Mon-Fri between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET for assistance. TTAB will make every attempt to make the content accessible and ensure the quality and formatting is the same as the original version. However, TTAB cannot guarantee that the attachments will be accessible or that there will not be any discrepancies after making the content accessible. Please visit USPTO’s Accessibility web page for more information.

Contact Information

Phone: 571-272-8500, Hours of Operation: Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET
Email: TTABInfo@uspto.gov (General Information about TTAB proceedings)
Email: ESTTA@uspto.gov (Technical assistance with ESTTA filings)

Official Mailing Address:
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
P.O. Box 1451
Alexandria, VA 22313-1451

For delivery via FedEx, UPS, etc.:
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Madison East, Concourse Level Room C 55
600 Dulany Street
Alexandria, VA 22314