The United States Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) new
rule requiring foreign-domiciled trademark applicants, registrants,
or trademark-proceeding parties to be represented by a U.S.
attorney (84 FR 31498) took effect on August 3, 2019. The USPTO
issued an accompanying initial Examination Guide in early August to
help implement the rule. After taking into account responses to the
initial Examination Guide, the USPTO recently revised those
guidelines.
Particularly, the revised Examination Guide [link] addresses
concerns with language in the initial Examination Guide with
respect to determining an applicant's domicile. The
initial Examination Guide provided separate sections for
determining domiciles for U.S. citizens and foreign citizens.
However, the revised Guide does not make this distinction and
merely provides for “U.S. Domicile" (no U.S. attorney
representation necessary) and "non-U.S. Domicile" (U.S.
attorney representation necessary).
