What do a trademark portfolio and a transmission have in common? If they are well maintained, they last a long time. If not, fixing them can be expensive.
I am currently fixing a transmission where the damage came from a prior owner. This got me thinking about trademarks and sometimes during an acquisition, you obtain trademarks that may not have been properly maintained.
In terms of trademark maintenance, at the US trademark office, you have to demonstrate use of the mark for each category of goods and services every 10 years to renew the registration.
Trademarks must also be used properly to avoid becoming generic. Remember the ACID test from my earlier post.
When acquiring trademarks, it can be difficult to track down all uses of the acquired marks, but it is good to capture as much as is feasible and create a database with images of current uses to prepare for renewals and determine if proper use is being made. For those marks where current use documents are scarce or the use needs improvement, the acquisition can be a good point to reinvigorate those marks by updating their use and saving images of the new use in your database.
It is better to identify these issues up front rather than on the eve of a renewal or when faced with cancellation.#cuecards#trademarks
