The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board is seeking input on whether its standard protective order, which is applicable in all Opposition and Cancellation proceedings, should afford in-house counsel presumptive access to Attorney's Eyes Only information.

The TTAB's standard protective order provides for two levels of protected information: 1) Confidential - Attorney's Eyes Only (Trade Secret/Commercially Sensitive) information, which can only be seen by outside counsel, and 2) Confidential information, which should be shielded from the public.

Under the current version of the standard protective order, which was last revised on June 24, 2016, in-house counsel access can only access Attorney's Eyes Only information upon an appropriate showing and approval by the Board.

A discussion page for the issue is available here: https://uspto-tbmp.ideascale.com/a/ideas/top/campaign-filter/byids/campaigns/61076/stage/unspecified. Interested parties may create an account to submit comments. The comment period closes March 31, 2019.