Manual of Patent Examining Procedure - MPEP

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700 Examination of Applications

707.13 Returned Office Action

Office actions are sometimes returned to the Office because the United States Postal Service has not been able to deliver them. Upon receipt of the returned Office action, the Technology Center (TC) technical support staff will check the application file record to ensure that the Office action was mailed to the correct correspondence address. If the Office action was not mailed to the correct correspondence address, it should be stamped "remailed" with the remailing date and mailed to the correct correspondence address. The period running against the application begins with the date of remailing. If the Office action was mailed to the correct correspondence address and it was addressed to an attorney or agent , a letter may be written to the inventor or assignee informing him or her of the returned action. The period running against the application begins with the date of remailing. Ex parte Gourtoff, 1924 C.D. 153, 329 O.G. 536 (Comm'r Pat. 1924).

If the Office is not finally successful in delivering the letter, it is placed, with the envelope, in the file wrapper. For an Image File Wrapper (IFW), a copy of the letter and a copy of the envelope should be added to the IFW (see IFW Manual). If the period dating from the remailing elapses with no communication from applicant, the application is abandoned.

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