T.M.E.P. § 718.06
Notice by Office of Abandonment for Failure to Receive a Response

Executive summary:

This document contains one section of the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (the "TMEP"), Fourth Edition (April 2005). This page was last updated in June 2007. You may return to one either the section index, or to the key word index. If you wish to search the TMEP, simply use the search box that appears on the bottom of every page of BitLaw--be sure to restrict your search to the TMEP in the pop-up list.

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718.06 Notice by Office of Abandonment for Failure to Receive a Response

If no response is received by the USPTO within six months of the mailing date of an Office action, the application is sent to the examining attorney to be abandoned. The examining attorney should check the record to ensure that there is no response and that the Office action was sent to the correspondence address of record. See TMEP §§603 et seq. See TMEP §§717 et seq. regarding the remailing of an Office action that was sent to the wrong address due to an Office error.

An application is considered to be abandoned as of the day after the date on which a response was due, although the examining attorney performs the TRAM transaction that reports the abandonment at a later date. The USPTO sends a computer-generated notice of abandonment to the correspondence address listed in the application file.

Applications that are abandoned after ex parte appeals or inter partes proceedings are considered abandoned as of the date of the action by the Board that caused the application to abandon (e.g., affirming the examining attorney's refusal or sustaining an opposition). However, the TRAM transaction reporting the abandonment is not performed until a month after expiration of the period for appeal from the Board's decision.