Online Trademark Registration | Causes For Trademark Application Refusals

Maximum trademark applications are not permitted on their first go-around according to the USPTO trademark statistics. Only a few applications get a “first action approval”. This indicates that Office Actions are published against the huge majority of trademark applications. While the causes for Online Trademark Registration application refusals are numerous, they fall under two categories usually:

• Non-substantive problems and
• Refusal of registration

Non-substantive issues are quite clear-cut and inexpensive to fix, with the exception of uncertain trademark provisions. Examples of non-substantive issues comprise requests for alterations or further information in regards to the following:

• recognition of services and goods
• background on the suggestion of the mark in a foreign language or in the industry
• clarification of the mark if a stylized logo is entailed

Considerably more effort and cost will be essential to overcome a substantive denial to get your trademark registered. Examples of substantive grounds for refusing a trademark application include:

• likelihood of confusion with an earlier filed or registered trademark (i.e., your mark is too alike to an individual’s mark filed prior to your application);
• failure to identify function or source as a trademark 
• merely descriptive mark (i.e., your mark clarifies a feature, quality or characteristic of the goods or services renowned in your application); and

Tips to lessen or avoid trademark rejections

Before filing your Trademark registration application, know that definite pre-filing measures can lessen the risk of substantive and non-substantive denials considerably. Here are some guidelines.

If you are thinking, leave out those marks that seem descriptive or generic of your products. You should also reform phrases or words that seem to offer only informational matter, and be lacking in the prospective to become a source recognizing brand that will discriminate your company.

The recognition of goods and services will require careful consideration. You want to use representations that not only go with USPTO trademark benchmarks, but will also decrease going beyond with the goods/services of any associated registered marks.

One possibly serious error is recognizing numerous goods or services in a use-based application when, in fact, the candidate has not yet used the mark on all the products recognized in the application. There is no wrongdoing in recognizing numerous goods/services in an Intent-To-Use application, but such an error in a use-based application can result in void registration if not repaired in time.

To lessen the risk of a likelihood of bewilderment rejection, a triumph search of the USPTO trademark file should be carried out prior to filing your trademark application. Searching for the precise mark in the same class is quite easy, but searching for other marks that might be considered as confusingly similar necessitates some skill and experience.

Tips to react to trademark application refusals productively

In spite of planning beforehand and carefully staying away from drawbacks, you may get an Office Action. It may be of somewhat console, but it helps to remember that USPTO trademark examining legal representatives are not robots sticking to a stable formula or pattern. The challenge is to encourage the human examiner that your Trademark Registration Service is allowable.