
1 
These Rules may be cited as the Trade Marks and Service Marks (Amendment) Rules 1989 and shall come into force on 1st August 1989.
2 

(1) For paragraph (1) of rule 115 of the Trade Marks and Service Marks Rules 1986 there shall be substituted the following –“
(1) Where, on any day, there is –
(a) a general interruption or subsequent dislocation in the postal services of the United Kingdom, or
(b) an event or circumstances causing an interruption in the normal operation of the Office,
the Registrar may certify the day as being one on which there is an “interruption” and, where any period of time specified in these Rules for the sending or filing of any notice, application or other document expires on a day so certified the period shall be extended to the first day next following (not being an excluded day) which is not so certified.
(1A) Any certificate of the Registrar given pursuant to this rule shall be posted in the Office.”.
(2) In paragraph (3) of the said rule 115 there shall be substituted for the words “the period of interruption or dislocation” the words “the interruption”.
(3) At the end of rule 115 there shall be inserted the following paragraph:“
(4) If in any particular case the Registrar is satisfied that the failure to file any notice, application or other document within any period of time specified in these Rules or within the period of six months specified in section 39A(1) of the 1938 Act or of the modified 1938 Act was wholly or mainly attributable to a failure or undue delay in the postal services in the United Kingdom, the Registrar may, if he thinks fit, extend the period of time so that it ends on the day of the receipt by the addressee of the notice, application or other document (or, if the day of such receipt is an excluded day, on the first following day which is not an excluded day), or, in the case of the said period of six months, determine that the application shall be treated as having been made within that period, in each case upon such notice to other parties and upon such terms as he may direct.”.
Eric Forth 
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State,
Department of Trade and Industry
3rd July 1989