How can I prevent the USPTO from raising an office action?

Photo of Tomas Orsula

Written by Tomas Orsula

Senior Trademark Attorney

The most effective steps before filing are: conducting a thorough TESS search to identify conflicting marks, assessing the mark's distinctiveness, selecting the correct filing basis (use-in-commerce or intent-to-use), drafting the goods and services list using USPTO-accepted terminology, and for use-in-commerce applications, ensuring the specimen clearly demonstrates use of the mark in US commerce.

None of these guarantee no office action will be issued, but they address the most common causes. A mark that is clearly distinctive, has no close similarities to earlier registrations, and is filed with a correctly formatted application and a clean specimen has the lowest risk of receiving one.

Run a free trademark search with Trama before filing your application.

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