In some rare instances, trademark owners may need to voluntarily cancel their trademark registration.
If a trademark owner decides to voluntarily surrender their trademark registration, they can do so as outlined by Section 7(e) of the Lanham Act, also known as the Trademark Act. The process to surrender a trademark registration is fairly straightforward.
Trademark owners who want to cancel their trademark registration can go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website, and in particular the trademark renewals, maintenance, and corrections page, and click on the link to “Surrender of registration for cancellation.”
Above is the USPTO portal for trademark owners to surrender their trademark registration
When filling out the “Surrender of registration for cancellation” form online, trademark owners can cancel their trademark registration in full, or cancel only certain classes within their trademark registration. For example, a trademark owner with a registered trademark in Classes 25 and 35 can elect to only cancel the trademark registration regarding Class 35.
People reading this may wonder why a trademark owner would voluntary relinquish their rights to a trademark registration. The most common reason is they had a trademark dispute with a third party and to settle the dispute the trademark owner agreed to voluntarily surrender a trademark registration. Another reason may be they simply no longer use the trademark and rather than just waiting for it to expire, they proactively cancel it (although this seems highly unlikely).
Do you have any questions how to surrender a trademark registration? Contact us today for a Free Trademark Consultation and we will do our best to help you out.