6.2 Adding a positive limitation

An applicant may attempt to overcome a citation by requesting a positive limitation be inserted to more clearly define the goods or services and remove any possibility of overlap with the cited marks goods or services. This would involve clearly identifying the area of conflict and substituting a more precise list of goods or services instead of the broad terms used in the existing specification. For example, the following amendments to the specification would be acceptable:

Where the goods or services of the cited mark are specifically related to a particular industry, field or type of good, the following amendments to the specification would be acceptable: 

However, it is unlikely that an applicant will be able to overcome a citation where the cited mark’s specification covers the entire class or where the cited mark’s specification is substantially broader than that of the applicant’s mark.