A trademark watch service monitors newly filed and pending third-party trademark applications for marks confusingly similar to yours and within your product or service area. Not all trademark infringement is malicious. Some businesses may innocently adopt a confusingly similar brand to yours. This may damage your trademark as an exclusive source identifier for your product or service.
Over a million new trademark filings are submitted to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, WIPO and the European Union every year. In 2019 alone, the United States Patent & Trademark Office reported 6,73,233 new federal trademark application filings. Consequently, it is simply impossible to diligently monitor these ad hoc.
How it Works
Smith & Hopen monitors your mark and provides you with weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly reports regarding the status of your trademark and other potential issues that may come about post-registration.
The system uses a proprietary algorithm to search through databases to generate a customized report. The report is generated based on several search strategies, including identical spellings, phonetic spelling, orthographic similarity, plural spelling, abbreviations, acronyms, among others.
Early Engagement is Best
Our trademark watch service generates a report every week. If we find a confusingly similar application, it makes good sense to immediately reach out to that trademark applicant and advise them of the problem. By engaging the third party applicant early, we avoid them expending capital into an infringing brand and they are more likely to abandon or quickly phase-out their use of the trademark.
More Options with Monitoring
In limited circumstances, a Letter of Protest may be filed with the trademark examining attorney outlining why the pending application should be refused registration. If the application is published for opposition, we can (with no government fee) file an Extension of Time to Oppose. This allows us to “pause” the application process and engage the third-party applicant in discussions. Often times, a written agreement is made to avoid the applicant from expanding into our client’s product or service industry.
How to Get Started
Trademark monitoring is relatively inexpensive but important in policing your trademarks. Simply let us know which marks you want us to monitor and we will send you an estimate. By default we will monitor in the United States. Options available are:
- United States only.
- European Union: (28 EU countries, Norway, Switzerland, EUIPO, WIPO)
- Global: World trademark databases coverage, EUIPO, WIPO
- Nordic: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, WIPO
- Single Countries (virtually all countries are available).
We are happy to answer any questions you may have.