Patent Attorney and Founder
If your patent has a typo, don’t panic; it doesn’t kill the whole patent. The good news is you can fix it with what’s called a Certificate of Correction. That’s filed under section 1480, for anyone who loves looking up the details.
The key is intent. If the mistake was honest, like a misspelling or small error, you’re fine. What the Patent Office cares about is fraud. If you were trying to trick them, say by pretending to be someone else, then you’d have a real problem. But for an honest mistake, they’ll simply ask you to confirm nothing shady was going on, and usually it’s no big deal.
Now, trademarks are a different story. If a trademark application has the wrong name, that is a problem. You could end up with a registration under the wrong owner, which creates all kinds of issues.
I’ve actually seen this happen once. We filed a trademark application and later, when we submitted the specimen (that’s the proof of use), the examiner caught a small spelling difference in the name. Luckily, it was just a one-letter slip. Since it didn’t change the meaning or cause confusion, they let us fix it. But for a moment, I thought I was going to have to scrap it and refile. That would’ve been costly.
So, patents? Typos are usually fixable. Trademarks? Be extra careful.