We believe all trademark users need to have a basic knowledge of trademark law to conduct their affairs wisely. That’s why one of the components of our service is client education. When you become a new client we’ll schedule a consultation during which we’ll inform you of important trademark issues you should understand, and also provide you with our Get Trademark Smart! informational brochure for your easy reference.

At the same time as we are providing our client education component we take care of the nuts and bolts of performing a comprehensive trademark search.  The usual procedure for a new trademark is the following:

First, we conduct a preliminary knock-out screening to find any obvious trademark conflicts, and then, assuming the mark clears this initial screening, we conduct a thorough comprehensive trademark search and provide you with an attorney opinion letter.  The comprehensive search is an industry standard search covering common law trademarks, USPTO registrations and applications, the 50 states’ trademark registrars, company names and domain names. The actual research underlying our comprehensive search report is conducted by a leading trademark search company with decades of experience.

Unlike some law firms, we don’t use computer search software to generate our comprehensive search reports.  We understand that the comprehensive search report is the basis for our legal opinion and it’s got to be reliable.  To get the reliable results you need, we use people – not machines – making judgments based on human understanding of language and experience searching trademarks.

You’ll receive your attorney opinion letter within ten business days.  Then we’ll consult with you regarding the search results and our legal opinion – just call us to speak to Tom Wilentz about your search report and opinion letter. We’ll answer your questions and together we’ll decide on a plan to move forward.  In the event that the search indicates there is a problem with your proposed trademark, we will offer you a preliminary screening of an alternate trademark at no added fee.

After your consultation about the search results you may instruct us to proceed with the drafting and filing of an application to register your trademark, in which case we’ll prepare the filing order and send it to you for your review prior to filing.  Once you have signed off on the filing order we’ll file the application with the USPTO and provide you with a filing receipt.  Then we will place the application on our docket and follow its progress through the USPTO examination process, notifying you as necessary of any follow up communications with the USPTO that may be required.  You can rest easy knowing that you have a trademark attorney with experience drafting and filing trademark applications since 2003 on your side.

Serious businesses who are serious about their trademark rights monitor their trademark portfolio. It’s standard operating procedure and a critical component of safeguarding your trademark.

Monitoring of USPTO trademark filings is available to all clients.  Our most popular monitoring subscription watches newly filed trademarks at the USPTO so that you will be informed of any filings that may be confusingly similar to your trademark, thereby affording you the opportunity to oppose such filings.

Additionally, we encourage all clients to call us after six months for a trademark in use review, during which we will look at your examples of trademark use and advise you whether such use is appropriate and supportive of your trademark pending application or registration, or whether your use is problematic in some way. This six-month review is included in our flat fee trademark service at no extra charge.