A few months ago, trademark practitioners were comparing experiences with backlogs at “post-reg”. By this we mean the branch of the USPTO that handles papers filed after a trademark has registered. (The forum in which they discussed these backlogs is the E-trademarks listserv.) As of a few months ago, they were seeing backlogs in the range of 2-3 months. But recently things seem to have improved drastically.
The filings that I am talking about are Declarations of Use, for example Section 8 filings and Section 71 filings. And as I say, as recently as a few months ago, we were seeing many such filings that sat in post-reg for as long as 2-3 months.
But recently, post-reg seems to have really gotten better. A recent record is a Declaration of Use that we filed late in the day on Tuesday, May 3. And post-reg mailed out the Notice of Acceptance on Friday, May 6. A mere three business days. But we have seen many other post-reg filings that got handled quite promptly — five business days or ten business days for example.
What experiences have others had recently with post-reg filings? Please post a comment below. Oh, and if anyone happens to know what changed at the USPTO to bring about this happy improvement, please post a comment about it.
I filed a combined 8/15 on April 18, 2016 and as of May 7, 2016 no action. Fourteen business days and counting. A Section 8/9 filed on January 27, 2016 was accepted April 4, 2016.
I think you caught a aberrational break in the time-space continuum. I’m still waiting for a late February 8-15 and several from March.
Filed five (5) Section 8s on April 27 and received approvals on May 18.