Category Archives: Fun Facts

Results of the TM TKO 2020 Trademark Practice Economic Survey

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For the past two weeks, TM TKO ran a survey about how trademark professionals are feeling about their practice in 2020. We’ll summarize the results in this blog post. Thanks to our users and to participants on Oppendhal Patent Law Firm’s e-trademarks listserv for their responses!

About TM TKO

A very quick word about us – TM TKO has been providing daily or subscription-based access to a variety of trademark research tools since 2015. Our customers include AmLaw 100 firms, trademark boutiques, solo practitioners, government agencies, in-house counsel, and more. We had our best year ever in 2019, and are looking forward to 2020.

We aim to help trademark lawyers with three main pillars of all successful trademark practices: solving everyday problems, solving hard problems, and growing practices.

Everyday problems: our clearance, search, and watch tools help you with your day-to-day practice needs. Hard problems: specialized research tools like trademark Examiner analytics, automated and manual Office Action research, and comparative research via ThorCheck® can help overcome difficult prosecution refusals. Growing your practice: we have an expanding set of marketing solutions to help grow your client base and generate more projects for existing clients.

Haven’t used TM TKO yet? It’s free to try for 30 days.

To the Results!

Trademark Practice – Size and Geography

50% of respondents practice in groups of 2 to 5 trademark lawyers; the rest were evenly split between solo practitioners and larger groups.

Almost half of respondents were from the east coast, with about 20% each from the west coast and southeast, and a smattering elsewhere. All but a couple of respondents were American lawyers. Of those, about 70% were in large cities, with the rest in small-to-medium size cities.

Expectations for 2020

People felt pretty good about their personal practices and about their firms’ trademark practices – just above 50% felt like their personal practice was improving and 40% felt their firm’s trademark practice was improving (respondents were high achievers, apparently). About 40% expected a similar year, and under 10% expected a worse year or couldn’t guess how the year would go.

US prosecution work was the main growth area for 66% of respondents, with smaller numbers seeing growth in international prosecution, non-litigation disputes, and prosecution. Litigation was a growth area for only 15% of respondents, and a slowing practice area for 20%.

Client relationships remain key – 63% of respondents generate most of their new work from existing clients; domestic referrals are a key for 45% of respondents and international referrals from foreign counsel for 28% of respondents. Respondents’ own business development efforts were only a significant factor for 25% of respondents.

The low level of direct business development efforts maybe isn’t a good thing, though; 45% of respondents listed client acquisition as their single biggest challenge for 2020. Staffing, price pressures and commoditization, technology, and practice costs all had over 20% of respondents worried. Two things generated lower levels of worry: clients paying (17%) and client retention (11%). Once clients are in the door, they tend to both pay their bills and stick around.

Technology

A lot of lawyers changed some of the technology tools that they use for practice in 2019, but seem less inclined to do so in 2020. Search, watch, research, prosecution research, and docketing tools all polled over 25% for 2019; only other research tools (over 50%) cracked the 20% mark for 2020. Respondents were generally enthused about technology improving their practice and its efficiency, although there several respondents comments on technology-adjacent concerns about filing mills and unauthorized practice of law rules.

The USPTO and Its Performance

The good feelings end here. 62% of respondents think the USPTO is doing a worse or much worse job in examination than in recent years, and only one respondent thought it was improving. 66% of respondents said that the USPTO has gotten better at nothing in the last several years; about 20% commended the USPTO on changes for website usability and 10% on improved TTAB decisions. The most common gripes: 40% took issue with examination on 2(d) issues, 30% on 2(e) issues, 45% with website usability, and 45% other prosecution issues. 17% felt there were no negative changes and 10% found that TTAB decisions were getting worse.

The “disastrous implementation” of the domicile and email rules was specifically called out by a number of respondents, as were specimen issues and the problems the USPTO is having keeping the registry clean of marginal use claims (and its spillover onto legitimate applicants).

Travel, Education, and Networking

75% of respondents usually attend the INTA Annual Meeting, by far the most of any meeting. 40% go to an unlisted event, with 20% or fewer going to the INTA Leadership Meeting, the AIPLA Annual Meeting, a state bar annual meeting, or the ABA IP Bar annual meeting.

This year, the travel to Singapore appears to be really hitting INTA attendance, at least among the North American lawyers who responded to this survey. Only 31% said they were attending this year (a 40% drop); anecdotally, people suggested that the costs and travel time commitments are the main reasons for this decision. TM TKO is in this group, too – we are allocating our time and conference budget elsewhere this year. One wonders if potential late-attendee numbers might drop as well, due to the outbreak of the coronavirus in the region. Other conferences had roughly similar numbers.

Conclusion

We hope your trademark practice has a great 2020, and if TM TKO can do anything to help make that a reality, don’t hesitate to contact us.

The Rise of IP Clinics

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The USPTO runs a program to allow law school clinics to engage in practice before the Office. It provides law students great practice experience while they are still in law school, and is generally acclaimed as a great success. The Office most recently expanded the roster of IP clinics in 2016-2017, adding twenty law schools in mid-2008. The program also provides for expedited examination, so students can both file and handle and prosecution issues in a single academic semester or quarter.

The Office prepared a 2016 report on clinic activity from 2009-2016. Over those seven years, 2,000 trademark applications were filed by clinics as counsel, and 2,700 students were involved in clinics (both trademark and patent work). The

At TM TKO, we have been getting our set of law clinic users (it’s free for clinical / academic use!) ready for the semester, and the clinic program has been on our mind. So, we ran some updated numbers. These numbers are not going to match the USPTO’s figures from the clinics’ biannual reporting requirements. We do not have access to that data. Instead, our estimates based on the use of email addresses listed in the USPTO’s clinic list. Some clinics will use other emails for their USPTO communications, and our search methodology will not pull in those results. So, don’t get too hung up on specific numbers — this data only shows general trends.

The number of clinic-based filings per year have continued to rise, from the 400-500 range to over 650 last year. Much of that rise appears to be due to the expanded roster of active clinics. There is also a pretty wide range of trademarks being handled, from just a couple per year for some clinics to fifty or more for a couple of very ambitious (and busy) clinics. We don’t have student numbers for each clinic, so it’s impossible to say whether these are just more heavily attended or doing more filings per student.

IP Clinics are providing students valuable opportunities to understand the nuts and bolts of trademark practice and to build client relationship management skills. Both are crucial in running an active IP practice, and the USPTO’s clinical programs are giving today’s law students a great head start on practice that was not available ten years ago.

Participating Law Schools201920182017
American University, Washington College of Law954
Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law614642
Baylor Law School5128
Boston College Law School748
California Western School of Law171617
Fordham University School of Law340
Howard Universtity000
Indiana University Maurer School of Law212412
Indiana University McKinney School of Law001
Lewis & Clark Law School131714
Liberty University School of Law100
Lincoln Law School of San Jose000
New York Law School6100
North Carolina Central University School of Law1268
Northeastern University School of Law1034
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law312122
Roger Williams University School of Law201
Rutgers Law School323
Seattle University School of Law1228
South Texas College of Law Houston262923
Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law15310
Southern University Law Center310
Suffolk University Law School21015
Syracuse University College of Law71013
Texas A&M University School of Law954
The George Washington University School of Law894
Thomas Jefferson School of Law71613
Tulane University Law School522
UIC John Marshall Law School81314
UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law201313
University of Akron School of Law000
University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law21108
University of California, Irvine School of Law500
University of Connecticut School of Law171521
University of Detroit Mercy School of Law000
University of Idaho College of Law514
University of Maryland School of Law544025
University of Miami School of Law1972
University of Nebraska College of Law1978
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law16105
University of Notre Dame Law School13136
University of Pennsylvania Law School2050
University of Puerto Rico School of Law001
University of Richmond School of Law192716
University of San Diego School of Law171516
University of San Francisco School of Law335626
University of St. Thomas School of Law28101
University of Tennesee College of Law141016
University of Washington School of Law6215
Vanderbilt Law School201412
Western New England University School of Law334
Total652528449

TM TKO: 2020 Trademark Economic & Practice Forecast

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TM TKO is compiling data on trademark lawyers’ expectations for the new year. We would love to have your feedback! Topics include the economy and the trademark bar, practice challenges, USPTO performance, and more. All data will be used only in aggregate form, and published for the benefit of the trademark community; your individual response will not be used in any way.

To take the survey, go here.

Your feedback and insights will be shared with the trademark community. Make sure to visit TM TKO’s blog to see the results later this month.

Building a Portfolio – the Chipotle Brand

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Companies whose marks toe the descriptive-suggestive line can have complicated paths to “full” trademark protection on the US Principal Register. Let’s look at one what is now a well-known brand traveled the path to a strong registration portfolio – the house mark for Chipotle, the Denver-based fast Mexican chain. The company now has more than fifty active US filings, about half of which are registrations for its house mark or stylizations thereof. Andrew Roppel of Holland & Hart’s Boulder Office is the filing correspondent for the company’s US marks.

Chipotle’s first trademark registration was for CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL & Design, shown below. The full prosecution history has never been scanned by the USPTO, but the application was filed in 1994 based on use since the prior year; a registration eventually issued on the Supplemental Register in late 1995. Why did it end up on the Supplemental Register? A chipotle pepper is a dried, smoked jalapeno pepper, either used on its own or packed in a spicy adobo sauce often used in Mexican cuisine, including in some of Chipotle Mexican Grill’s own food.

Chipotle_first
chipotle_dried

The company revisited its trademark portfolio in 1998, filing for the logo above, the word mark CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL, and the word mark CHIPOTLE with 2(f) claims in 1998, eventually obtaining registrations for each in 2000. The company faced a 2(e) refusal for these re-filed applications. In response, it submitted extensive arguments arguing that CHIPOTLE was suggestive rather than descriptive, but the Office continued to refuse the mark as merely descriptive. A 2(f) claim based solely on 5 years’ use was sufficient to move forward to registration.

At the same time, the Office requested that the company disclaim CHIPOTLE and MEXICAN GRILL in the combined application. A response making a 2(f) claim and disclaimer of “Mexican Grill” overcame that issue, too.

The company’s expansion into prepared food products in 2005 generated similar issues, although, since the applicant was initially filed as an intent to use application, its 2(f) claim was initially refused on the grounds that (a) “chipotle” was more related to the applied-for foods than even restaurant services, and the distinctiveness for the prior registrations for services would not necessarily translate. The applicant was able to argue around the refusal based on the relationship between the goods and services, without having to fully paper out an evidence-based acquired distinctiveness claim. The application for CHIPOTLE alone for foods also ran into some prior-pending applications for BAJA CHIPOTLE for meat, CHIPOTLE BEEF PATTY for burgers, and CHIPOTLE for pizza, but each of them was abandoned prior to registration – the BAJA CHIPOTLE mark after an opposition by Chipotle Mexican Grill, the other two due to run of the mill prosecution inconveniences.

Chipotle has since obtained numerous registrations for variations of its house mark, all with little fuss – the 2(f) claims aren’t generating push-back from examiners any more, largely because most have probably eaten at a Chipotle restaurant at least once.

If you have a client facing a similar issue, TM TKO helps you research trademark prosecution histories, with more than ten million Office Actions and Responses that are fully searchable by issue, free-text, or any mark criteria that you can think of. Find the best examples of successful responses and evidence, mold the ideas and legal theories to your facts, and do your best work to help your clients succeed.

High Fantasy Tropes as Trademarks

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It’s rare that someone hasn’t enjoyed some of the writings or fictional worlds of some of the great fantasy authors, like J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, J. K. Rowling, and many more, even including the rare writer who does not use their initials as a part of their name. Let’s look to see how some of the most common tropes from “high” fantasy fiction have turned into brand names.

As it turns out, the frequency with which book authors use each of these terms, as tracked by Google Books N-Gram analysis, is very similar to the frequency with which those terms are using a trademark. On the trademark side, looked at these terms just as stand-alone words; doubtless, there are some additional uses as a part of compound or unitary marks consisting of two or more conjoined terms, but this suffices to show general trends.

Dragon and wizard led the way in both N-Gram use and trademark filings, perhaps not surprisingly. The only exceptions to the order of N-Gram usage were “dwarf,” which was underrepresented in trademark filings (perhaps out of deference to those with achondroplasia or similar conditions), and “hobbit,” which was overrepresented because The Saul Zaentz Company, which acquired some Lord of the Rings-related rights in connection with a 1978 animated film, owns a bunch (in fact, every single active registration or application for that mark) of filings in the US in connection with merchandising deals.

Term Pending Registered Dead N-Gram
DRAGON 291 849 1772 .00060%
WIZARD 84 434 1530 .00035%
DWARF 6 21 44 .00032%
ELF 34 120 257 .00010%
GOBLIN 5 21 40 .00005%
MAGE 3 19 56 .00005%
TROLL 9 47 192 .00005%
ORC 3 25 30 .00001%
HOBBIT 3 51* 66 .00001%