An online-publication identification can cover an owner's own journal
An identification limited to online publication of journals can cover an applicant making its own journal available online, and web pages offering that journal can serve as the specimen. The ID Manual note calling publication of one's own periodical goods in Class 16, not a service, appears only on journal entries without an online limit. In this non-precedential decision the Board treated "online", not "publication of" or "providing", as the dividing line (slip op. at 13–16 & n.36).
A specimen showing a service other than the one identified remains unacceptable (at 11–12 n.23), and wording without the online limit still draws the note. When amending, the safer course is to follow an online entry closely, such as "Providing online non-downloadable journals" in a stated field. The Board observed that a phone conference "might have obviated the misunderstanding" (at 17–18, citing TMEP §709.01), and it excluded evidence first raised in the appeal brief (at 8–9). In the editors' view, a refusal that turns on wording is usually cheaper to settle by interview than by appeal.
The applicant, refused for "publication of journals" in the science of aging, amended to "providing online publication of" them and submitted web pages showing a journal issue and its articles (slip op. at 1–3). The examining attorney read the amendment as publishing for others while acknowledging that the specimens showed the applicant's own journal online (at 7–8, 11). The Board reversed; the ID Manual's list "is not exhaustive" (at 17).
Data angle: for scholarly and data publishers, the ID Manual's entry-level notes decided the case. The "online" limit, not the words "publication of", determined the specimen question.