Decisions · 88938938
In re Chestek PLLC
Serial No. 88938938 · Decided 2022-03-30 · Other
What happened
The Board affirmed the refusal to register CHESTEK LEGAL for legal services because the applicant law firm gave only a post office box instead of the required domicile street address, holding that an ex parte appeal is not the proper place to challenge the validity of the USPTO’s domicile-address rules - that challenge belongs in a petition for rulemaking.
The marks
Applicant
CHESTEK LEGAL (standard characters; LEGAL disclaimed)
Legal services (International Class 45)
Why this decision is significant
Precedential holding that the validity of the USPTO’s domicile-address rules (Rules 2.189, 2.2(o)-(p), 2.32(a)(2)) cannot be attacked in an ex parte appeal - the proper vehicle is a petition for rulemaking under 5 U.S.C. 553(e) - making this the leading Board authority on enforcing the domicile requirement against a P.O.-box address. It resolves a procedural/application-requirement question rather than a recurring substantive registrability doctrine.
Research significance is Trademark Valet's editorial rating of how useful a decision is to practitioners. It is not a statement of precedential weight — that is the separate Precedential field, which comes from the Board.
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The original record
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