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What if I miss the deadline to respond to an office action?

Senior Trademark Attorney

Missing the deadline without requesting an extension results in the application being considered abandoned. All filing fees paid to that point are forfeited and cannot be recovered.

In the US, there is a limited revival option: a petition to revive an abandoned application can be filed within two months of the abandonment date if there was a valid unintentional reason for missing the deadline. This is not available as a routine extension and is not guaranteed to succeed. After that window, a new application must be filed.

In most other jurisdictions, once the deadline passes the application is simply abandoned with no revival mechanism. A new application is required.

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