The bench
Send a piece
How to write to the bench: corrections with their sources, records a reader thinks we should consult, and the kind of note the bench keeps.
The bench reads its own mail the way it strikes its pieces: everything gets read, and nothing is stamped before it has been checked against the record. A note to the bench is the surest way to change what the journal says, because it lands where the pieces are actually made.
What the bench welcomes
Three kinds of note earn a place on the bench. The first is a correction with its source attached: if a piece states something the record contradicts, send the decision, the regulation, the register line or the bulletin that shows it, and we fix the piece and redate it. The second is a memory of the subject itself: a congress attended, a mark defended, a rulebook that changed how your trade worked. Recollections like those are what a piece is made of, and a good one can grow into a piece of its own. The third is a break in the pages: a link that went dead, a source that moved, a stamp that stopped holding. Sign the note the way you would sign a work order left at a counter: a name helps us answer, but the journal only ever prints the piece.
What the bench cannot do
We read and write about marks; we do not file or defend them. The bench cannot take an application, search a register on a reader's behalf, or say which name a reader ought to adopt. It cannot advise on a live dispute between holders: that work belongs to the attorney or the office whose signature carries it. Notes of that kind are answered kindly and pointed toward the right counter.
How to write
Write to letters@communitytrademark.org. Give the piece's title if you are writing about one, name the source or the register line where it helps, and expect a reply from a person at the bench rather than a form letter. A note that is read is a note checked before it is struck, and a letter is handled the same way: read first, verified where the record allows, and only then given its place on the bench. If a memory of yours becomes a piece, we write it the way we write our own: checked where checking is possible, with your name kept in the letter rather than on the page.