Congratulations! You’ve filed your application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  

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Now what? Well, first, you wait! There’s currently an 8 month delay to have your application assigned to an examiner.

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When you do hear back from the office, you’ll receive one of two things:

A Notice of Publication or

An Office Action

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A Notice of Publication tells you when the application will be published in “The Official Gazette.” The public then has 30 days to object to your mark. The notice will tell you when the 30 day period starts. After the 30 days,(you can relax!).

An Office Action is a communication from the examining attorney at the Trademark raising any legal issues that need to be addressed before the mark can be approved for publication.

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These can be non-substantive - meaning not related to the strength of the mark itself, like:

• Errors (e.g. the type of business entity)
• Description of goods or services is confusing
• Asking you to acknowledge that a word is descriptive
• Etc. 

Or they can be substantive - the likelihood of confusion with another mark on the register or the Examiner thinks the mark is too descriptive to be registrable.

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Once you respond to the Office Action, you will communicate with the Trademark Office until all of the issues have resolved then you will receive a Notice of Publication. Unless your application is definitively rejected - at that point you may decide to appeal to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (but that’s for another video!).

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That’s it! You’re well on your way to registering your mark!