Business Update

Trade mark practice guideline amendment 2006/05 – amending specifications

It also creates issues for examiners when searching on the IPONZ database as words with virgules and solidi are not able to be picked up by the search function.

Moreover, obvious spelling errors create unnecessary correspondence between examiners and the applicant or their Attorneys.

Currently, the Office practice is to write to the applicant and require these to be amended in accordance with the Office’s specification drafting syntax and to ensure that the nature of the specific goods or services is clear.

IPONZ will no longer write to applicants regarding such minor amendments. Where appropriate, IPONZ will amend virgules and solidi where they appear in a specification to “and/or”.  For example the goods “cars/boats” will be amended to “cars and/or boats”.

Minor spelling errors will also be amended by the examiner without sending a Compliance Report or contacting the Attorney.

Guidelines

IPONZ has amended the following clause to the Practice Guidelines on Classification and Specifications:

3.1.2 Punctuation, spelling and tautology

Where the specification is unclear due to poor punctuation, examiners should ask the applicant to correct this. The examiner may suggest appropriate alternative punctuation.

Examiners will correct any obvious spelling errors but should ask the applicant where the spelling error is not obvious.

Where a long specification contains a lot of tautology, examiners should request the removal of the duplicate items.

Examiners will amend virgules and solidi where they appear in a specification to “and/or”.  For example the goods “cars/boats” will be amended to “cars and/or boats”.

However, where the wording of the specification is unclear, the examiner will request more information from the applicant or, alternatively, suggest appropriate alternative wording or punctuation.