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The Trademark Monitoring Service Process


LegalZoom's Trademark Monitoring Service provides you with timely notice of any new filings that are confusingly similar to your own. As a trademark owner, you have a legal right to object to any new trademark applications that may harm your mark. Last year, over 185,000 marks were published for opposition in the Trademark Official Gazette of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  Thats over 3,500 trademarks per week.

LegalZoom will monitor all trademark applications as they are filed instead of waiting for them to be published in the Official Gazette. This potentially gives a trademark owner an extra 12 months notice to file his or her Opposition to Registration.

In addition, trademarks can be registered with either the USPTO or the trademark registrars of each state. Unlike most monitoring services, LegalZoom does not limit its scope to just the Federal Trademark Register. Instead, LegalZoom continually monitors both federal and state trademark filings.

Our trademark specialists will develop a detailed and unique search monitoring strategy based on your needs. In addition, our monitoring service alerts you to more than direct conflicts. Each trademark specialist is trained to create monitoring strategies designed to catch the following: 

  • Deceptively similar trademarks: Words that sound alike or have the same root, such as Polk Audio and Poke Audio.
  • Misspellings: Differences in one or two letters, such as Divine and Devine.
  • Different classes: We monitor all classes of goods and services. This means even if your Advantage Jeans trademark is used for clothing, we will notify you if someone uses Advantage for jewelry.
After you complete our easy-to-follow questionnaire, LegalZoom will begin monitoring your trademark immediately. Depending on which package you purchase, a weekly or monthly report will be sent to you via email indicating any new trademark applications that are confusingly similar to your mark. As an added bonus, LegalZoom will mail you a professionally bound report summarizing all of your monitoring results at the end of your subscription.