Trademark Office Goes Green With Online Processing Rule

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will require e-filing for nearly all trademark applications as of Oct. 5, part of the agency’s effort to be as paperless as possible.

The PTO has discouraged paper applications for years through lower fees for electronic filing. The new rule, which enacts electronic processing from start to finish, adds efficiency and accuracy while reducing costs, the office said July 31 in the Federal Register.

Only 144 of 468,000 trademark applications were filed on paper in fiscal year 2018, or about 0.03 percent. But about 12 percent of applications involve some paper processing, the agency ...