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A practical, USPTO-grounded guide to U.S. trademark law — how to search the federal register with the Trademark Search system (the successor to TESS) and TSDR, register and maintain a mark, respond to office actions, and navigate disputes before the TTAB. Every guide connects to the trademark modules of the Wysebridge IP Law Certificate.
19 core guides · 16 more articles
Start here
New to trademarks? Read these in order. Together they take you from an idea for a name to a registration you keep in force, using the USPTO's own tools.
8 steps · about 65 minutes of reading
You know every step from search to registration, and what happens at each one.
GuideHow to Register a Trademark with the USPTO3 minYou have searched the federal register for marks that look, sound or mean the same as yours.
GuideUSPTO Trademark Search: Using the Trademark Search System (Formerly TESS)6 minYou can tell whether a similar mark you found is likely to block yours.
GuideTrademark Likelihood of Confusion: The DuPont Factors3 minYou know which of the 45 classes your goods and services fall in, and what each one adds to the fee.
GuideTrademark Classes: The Nice Classification Explained3 minYour application is filed in Trademark Center and you have a serial number.
TutorialHow to Use USPTO Trademark Center: File a Trademark Application Step by Step13 minYou can look up your status and documents in TSDR and know what each status means.
TutorialHow to Use USPTO TSDR: Check Trademark Status & Documents23 minIf you receive an office action, you know what it is asking for and how to respond before the deadline.
GuideHow to Respond to a Trademark Office Action2 minYou have the Section 8, 9 and 15 deadlines in your calendar so the registration never lapses.
TutorialTrademark Renewal and Maintenance: Section 8, 9, 15 and 71 Deadlines12 minPlenty of owners file a simple application themselves. These are the situations where an attorney usually earns the fee.
Applicants and registrants domiciled outside the United States must be represented by an attorney licensed in a U.S. state (37 C.F.R. § 2.11).
A clearance opinion weighs unregistered, common-law uses the USPTO database does not show, before you spend money on a brand.
Likelihood-of-confusion and descriptiveness refusals turn on legal argument and evidence, and the first response is your best chance to overcome them.
Oppositions and cancellations before the TTAB are litigation, with discovery, evidence and briefing.
Only attorneys can represent others before the USPTO in trademark matters. Registered patent agents cannot.
Go deeper
More on each stage, for when you want the detail.
Before you file: find conflicting marks and judge the risk.
Exact-match searching misses most trademark conflicts. Here is how to use Boolean operators, wildcards, and field tags to run precise, high-coverage searches in the USPTO Trademark Search system.
Searching the USPTO register by owner reveals a company's entire trademark portfolio. Here is how to run an owner search, handle entity-name variations, and account for recorded assignments.
A trademark search that comes back clean is not the same as a mark that is clear. Here are the search errors that hide real conflicts in the USPTO database, and how to fix each one.
The free USPTO Trademark Search tool is authoritative for the federal register but covers only part of the clearance picture. Here is how it compares with commercial clearance tools and when each is worth using.
Filing in Trademark Center, choosing classes and answering the examiner.
Reading TSDR: statuses, documents and deadlines.
A trademark's TSDR status tells you exactly where it stands and what happens next. Here is what each status means — Live, Dead, Abandoned, Suspended, Registered — and what to do at each stage.
A trademark application moves through filing, examination, publication, and registration. Here is how to follow every stage in TSDR and know which deadline is coming next.
TSDR holds the complete file for every trademark. Here is how to find, open, and bulk-download office actions, specimens, and the full prosecution history as PDFs.
TSDR is the USPTO's trademark file system; Public PAIR was the patent equivalent until it was retired in 2022 and replaced by Patent Center. Here is how the trademark and patent systems compare.
Maintenance deadlines, disputes and the scope of protection.
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decides trademark disputes at the USPTO. Here is how oppositions, cancellations, and ex parte appeals work — and how they differ from court.
Trade dress protects the overall visual appearance of a product or its packaging. Here is what qualifies, the distinctiveness and non-functionality requirements, and the key cases.
Articles, news and analysis, newest first.
Learn U.S. patent law — provisional vs. non-provisional applications, claim drafting, patentability, and USPTO prosecution. Clear, practical guides.
A clear guide to U.S. copyright law — what it protects, registration, fair use, work made for hire, the DMCA, and how copyright differs from trademark.
A clear guide to U.S. trade secret law — what qualifies, the DTSA/UTSA, NDAs, misappropriation, and trade secret vs. patent protection.
Clear definitions of trademark, patent, and USPTO terminology — applications, specimens, the TTAB, the Madrid Protocol, distinctiveness, and more.
Every IP career path: patent agent, patent attorney, examiner, paralegal, licensing manager, and IP counsel.
Go from reading to credential
These guides cover the same ground as the Wysebridge IP Law Certificate — a 20-chapter practitioner course spanning trademark, patent, copyright, and trade-secret law. Module 1 is free for everyone.