PTO Announces Change to TEAS e-Signature Approach

Here's a bit of inside baseball to perk up your week. On or about January 22, 2011, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will introduce a new approach for the e-signature process of the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS). See details here.

Currently, the originator of the signature request uses Field 1 of the "E-Signature(s) Request Form" to provide the e-mail address of the intended signatory, and Field 2 to provide a personal message. The mailbox TEAS@uspto.gov attempts delivery of the signature request to the listed address. In the event that delivery is not successful, an "undeliverable" notice is bounced directly back to TEAS@uspto.gov, and not to the originator of the request. ***

[T]he e-signature approach is being changed so that the e-mail address of the intended signatory will no longer be captured. Instead, the requestor will take direct control over the process. That is, rather than the request being sent to the signatory, it will first go right back to the requestor. The requestor will then FORWARD the request to the signatory.

Meanwhile, until the form is changed, the requestor may simply fill in his or her email address in Field 1, and when the resulting email is received, forward that email to the intended signatory with any desired message.
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