**[CONSISTENCY INITIATIVE]{.underline}**

**In an effort to further improve quality, the Office has created a
centralized process by which an applicant may bring to the attention of
the Office situations where, in applicant's opinion, the Office has
acted inconsistently in its treatment of applicant's pending
applications/recent registration(s). Specifically, applicants may submit
a Request for Consistency Review when a substantive or procedural issue
(excluding any issues involving identifications of goods and services)
has been addressed in a significantly different manner in different
cases, subject to the following provisions: (1) the request is based on
co-pending applications or an application and a registration owned by
the same legal entity or a successor in interest (e.g., assignee); (2)
the registration(s) involved was issued less than one year prior to the
date of the request; (3) at least one of the applications in the request
is in a pre-publication status at the time of the request; and (4) the
allegedly inconsistent treatment has already occurred. Third parties are
prohibited from submitting requests in this forum, and the Office will
not consider or act on such requests.**

**Please note that the establishment of this process should not
discourage applicants from first contacting the assigned examining
attorneys to address consistency issues. On the contrary, applicants are
encouraged to do so because of the examining attorneys' familiarity with
and knowledge of the issues raised in their Office actions.**

**Issues concerning identification and classification of goods and
services have been excluded from the program at this time, in large part
because of the easy mechanism for consistency where an applicant selects
an acceptable identification set out in the Office's Manual of
Acceptable Identifications of Goods and Services. Nonetheless,
applicants who are unable to resolve identification and classification
issues in co-pending applications assigned to more than one examining
attorney may contact the managing attorneys of the law offices involved
(see list at http://www.uspto.gov/teas/contactUs.htm). Of course, as a
matter of practice, applicants should first make a good faith effort to
resolve these issues amongst the examining attorneys assigned to the
applications before contacting managing attorneys. Applicants should not
contact the examining attorney of any application that has already
registered unless the examining attorney is also assigned to one of the
co-pending applications at issue.**

**In all requests, applicants must briefly describe the allegedly
inconsistent action, and list the application(s) and/or registration(s)
involved. Requests must be limited to situations where inconsistent
treatment allegedly has already occurred. All requests will be scanned
into the USPTO's database and will be viewable by the public through
Trademark Document Retrieval (TDR). Applicants may not submit additional
evidence. If evidence is submitted, it will not be considered during
this process.**

**The Office will promptly review and consider each request. The Office
will not respond directly to the request, but action will be taken in
the pending application(s) if the Office deems it appropriate.
Requesters can expect that any action taken should occur within four to
six weeks of the date of the request, and requesters may review the
Office's online electronic systems (TDR, TARR) to monitor changes in the
identified applications. Requesters should note, however, that
subsequent action taken by the Office may differ from that requested.
Alternatively, the Office may determine that different handling of the
cases is appropriate, and no action will be taken. Generally, no action
can be taken to amend, or cancel and restore to application status any
existing registrations as a result of a request.**

**Applicants must send requests to TMCONSISTENCY@USPTO.GOV.** **The
filing of a request does not provide a basis to request suspension of an
application or appeal and will not stay the period for replying to an
Office action, filing a notice of appeal or submitting any other filing
that is due before the Office.**

**The Office anticipates that this consistency initiative will provide a
useful mechanism for the public to raise concerns and a valuable means
for the Office to improve quality. The initiative is being conducted as
a one-year pilot to allow for evaluation and refinement of the process
as needed.**