Why Trademark Monitoring Matters
New trademark applications are filed with the USPTO every day. Some of them may be confusingly similar to your mark. If caught early, evidence can be submitted to the USPTO about the potential conflict, and that evidence may be considered by the examining attorney handling the conflicting mark.
If a conflicting application is nevertheless published for opposition, you will have a 30-day opposition window to contest registration. Once it registers, proceedings to have it removed from the register can be significantly more challenging and more expensive. Monitoring the register ensures you see potential conflicts while they can still be addressed early, when challenging the other mark is most efficient.
Beyond the USPTO register, monitoring can also capture activity on state trademark registers, common-law use in the marketplace, and domain name registrations, all of which can create conflicts or signal that a competitor is edging toward your brand territory.
How Five Dogs Law's Monitoring Service Works
Five Dogs Law uses a leading third-party trademark surveillance system that scans the USPTO database continuously for new filings that are confusingly similar to your registered marks. The system evaluates phonetic similarity, visual similarity, and the relatedness of goods and services, not just exact matches. When a potentially conflicting filing is identified, Jared reviews it and provides you with an assessment of the risk and recommended action.
This means you are not receiving automated alerts about every vaguely similar filing. Instead, you are receiving a human attorney's evaluation of whether a new filing actually poses a threat to your mark and what, if anything, to do about it.
What Happens When a Conflict Is Identified
When monitoring identifies a potentially conflicting application, you have options. The most common are:
- Filing a letter of protest. Depending on the status of the application, evidence can be submitted that may be considered by the examining attorney when deciding whether to register the trademark.
- Filing an opposition. If the mark is published for opposition and the conflict is serious, an opposition proceeding before the TTAB can prevent registration entirely.
- Sending a cease and desist letter. In some cases, a letter to the applicant setting out your prior rights is enough to resolve the conflict without formal proceedings.
- Negotiating a consent or coexistence agreement. If the conflict is manageable, a formal agreement defining boundaries between the marks can allow both parties to proceed without ongoing risk.
- Taking no action. Not every similar-looking filing is a real threat. Jared will tell you honestly when a flagged mark is unlikely to create a problem in practice.
How Five Dogs Law Handles Trademark Monitoring
Monitoring is most valuable when it is connected to an attorney who can distinguish real threats from noise and advise on the proportionate response. Five Dogs provides monitoring as an ongoing service, with Jared personally reviewing flagged results and giving you clear, actionable guidance rather than leaving you to interpret raw alert data yourself.
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