New rules at the USPTO include the following:

•   International applications may be based on more than one application or registration, and may designate individual goods or services therefrom. Therefore, the ability to select goods or services from applications and registrations and place them in an international application is now acceptable. This practice is very similar to dividing applications, a practice already accepted at the USTPO, in which goods or services may be taken out of a “parent” application and placed in a “child.” Registrations, as well as applications, may now be divided, which is a new rule at the USPTO.

•   Color drawings are now accepted at the USPTO. Accordingly, the Official Gazette will be published in color. If color is claimed as a feature of the mark, a color drawing MUST be submitted.

•   E-drawings must be in .jpg format and scanned at no less than 300 dots per inch and no more than 350 dots per inch.

•   In previous practice, marks submitted in upper case letters were called “typed form drawings,” and an applicant could prove use by submitting a specimen of the mark in any stylization. Marks submitted in lower case letters were said to be “special form drawings.” Now, the “typed form drawings” have been expanded to include lower case letters, and have been renamed as “standard character drawings.” If an applicant is submitting a “standard character” drawing, the applicant must submit a statement that its mark is in “standard character” format.

•   Opposition practice has been changed in the United States. Whereas parties could suspend the filing of an opposition indefinitely while they negotiated, now an opposition must be filed within 180 days of publication.

•   Whereas before implementation of the Madrid Protocol applications could be abandoned as a whole, even if a rejection by an examiner was only directed to specific goods or services rather than all of those goods or services, now the application will only be partially abandoned, as the application will be granted protection for those goods that are NOT the subject of the specific outstanding requirement.