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Have your office action open — a few of these answers are copied straight off it. Everything else is about your own business, in your own words, and it is the only thing your arguments will be built from. Nothing is charged until the questions below are answered and we have confirmed markanswer can actually help.

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Your deadline, and the number a lot of pages still get wrong

You have 3 months from the issue date printed on the office action — not from the day the email arrived, and not from the day you opened it. One extension of 3 more months is available for $125, and you have to request it before the original date passes (37 C.F.R. §2.62(a)(2)).

This changed on December 3, 2022. Before that the period was a flat six months, and a great deal of guidance still published online says so. If a page tells you that you have six months by right, it is describing the old rule.

Can you file this response yourself?

Where is the applicant domiciled?

The applicant is you, or your company — whoever is named on the application. USPTO rules require an applicant domiciled outside the United States and its territories to be represented by a US-licensed attorney, so we check this before taking any money.

State or territory

Which refusals does your office action raise?

Tick every one it raises — an office action often raises more than one. Each has a page explaining what it means, linked from our refusal explainers.

Section 2(d) — likelihood of confusion with a registered markSection 2(e)(1) — merely descriptiveSpecimen refusal — the specimen does not show use in commerceIndefinite identification of goods or servicesDisclaimer requirement for an unregistrable component

My office action also raises something that is not on this list.Tick this if you are unsure. We would rather turn the sale away than draft an answer to a refusal we hold no authorities for.

What the office action says

Your mark, exactly as it appears on the application

Is your mark a made-up word?

A coined mark is invented rather than assembled from ordinary words — AVELUNE rather than Blue Ridge Coffee.

Yes — it is an invented wordNo — it is ordinary words, or a phrase

Application serial number

Eight digits, printed at the top of the office action. No spaces or dashes — for example 97123456.

The issue date printed on the office action

Not the day it landed in your inbox — the date on the document. Your whole deadline is counted from it.

International class

Three digits, as the application writes it — 003 for cosmetics, 009 for software, 025 for clothing.

Your goods or services, exactly as filed

Copy it from your application or from TSDR, word for word.

Your business, in your own words

Every argument is built from something you tell us here. Nothing is invented to fill a gap — where a fact is missing, the pack tells you the argument is weaker without it. Write as much as you want; there is no cosmetic limit on any of these.

What do you actually sell today?

Not the wording on the application — the real products, as you would print them on an invoice.

Who buys from you, and how do they decide?

Where are your goods sold?

The month you first sold under this mark

First actual sale, not the day you registered the domain or filed the application. This one date decides whether an argument resting on five years of use is open to you yet — we work that out rather than leaving it to be guessed.

What does it cost to buy?

What could you attach as evidence?

Storefront screenshots, invoices, packaging photos, press. The pack builds its evidence checklist from what you say you actually have.

How do competitors describe this kind of product?

Useful on a descriptiveness refusal: if everyone else calls it something different, your term is not the ordinary name for it.

Where to send itEmail

Your pack lands on a private page and in your inbox. We use this address for your receipt and your pack, nothing else.

One payment of $149. You are paying for a drafted response you review, correct, sign and file yourself through TEAS — markanswer never contacts the USPTO for you and never predicts what an examining attorney will do.

markanswer prepares self-help documents only. It is not a law firm, it provides no legal advice, and it never represents anyone before the USPTO. You review the response against your own office action, correct anything that is not true of you, sign it and file it yourself through TEAS before your deadline. No outcome is ever promised.