Can i renew an expired trademark [Fact Checked]

Last updated : Sept 21, 2022

How do I reactivate my trademark?

The person attempting to revive the trademark application must submit a petition to revive the application, the petition fee, and provide a statement that the oversight was unintentional. They must also file a response to the outstanding office action.

Can a trademark be renewed?

Unlike patents and copyrights, trademarks do not expire after a set period of time. Trademarks will persist so long as the owner continues to use the trademark. Once the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), grants a registered trademark, the owner must continue to use the trademark in ordinary commerce.

How long can a trademark be renewed?

In the United States, a federal trademark can potentially last forever, but it has to be renewed every ten years. If the mark is still being used between the 5th and the 6th year after it was registered, then the registration can be renewed.

How do I revive a Cancelled trademark?

If your trademark has fallen into 'dead' or 'abandoned' status unintentionally, you may petition the USPTO within 60 days of the Notice of Abandonment. After the 60 days have lapsed, or if you cannot document the abandonment was unintentional, you will need to file a trademark application with the USPTO.

Can I use an inactive trademark?

“A dead or abandoned status for a trademark application means that specific application is no longer under prosecution within the USPTO, and would not be used as a bar against your filing.” While you can register a dead mark, other potential issues may make it not worth the risk.

How long before a trademark is abandoned?

A trademark is abandoned when the owner stops using it for three years in a row without intending to use it again, according to 15 USC 1127. After three years of non-use, the owner must show tangible, solid evidence to counter a registration attempt by someone else.

What happens if I let my trademark expire?

If you let your trademark expire, you leave it open for another company or user to register and use it. If the products or services are different than yours, the other company may have an easier time acquiring your trademark. How do I renew a trademark?

How much does it cost to renew trademarks?

Renewal of Federal Trademark – Combined Section 8 / Section 9. Owners of a registered trademark are required to renew their registrations every 10 years. This must be filed between the ninth and tenth year after registration. To do so, you must file the Section 9 Renewal form and pay the $400 filing fee.

Can you lose a trademark if you don't protect it?

If you don't enforce your trademark, you risk losing reputation, business, sales, customers, and more to the infringer. There's also a concept in trademark law called abandonment. Generally, if you don't use your mark for three years or more, it's considered abandoned.

Do you have to keep paying for a trademark?

Once you apply, you may need to pay additional fees, depending on your filing basis. After your trademark registers, you will need to pay maintenance fees periodically to keep your registration alive.

How do you buy a dead trademark?

To claim the dead trademark you will need to complete an application with the USPTO. Provide your name and address, the name of the dead mark, a statement as to the goods and services that you wish to sell under the mark and a statement as to whether you have attempted to register the mark previously.

Can you refile a trademark application after abandonment?

If your application has been abandoned for more than six months, revival is unlikely and you should file a new application. If you can show that an extraordinary situation prevented you from filing a petition to revive within six months of the abandonment date, you can file a Petition to Director form.

Can you revive a dead trademark application?

If you receive notice that your trademark application is “dead” or “abandoned”, you must act quickly. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) requires a Petition to Revive within two months (or sixty days) of abandonment.

What is the difference between a live and dead trademark?

Once a trademark is registered, the registrant must maintain it by filing a declaration of continued use to keep the registration alive. A dead trademark registration is one whose registration was abandoned before it was issued, or for which no declaration of continued use was filed.

Why would a trademark be dead?

A dead trademark is an indicator by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office that a trademark application or registration is no longer actively pending. A trademark will be marked dead when a trademark registration is not renewed or when an applicant does not timely respond to an office action or notice of allowance.

How do you find a dead trademark?

DEAD trademarks, marks that no longer have an active registration or active application at the USPTO, can be searched at TESS: Trademark Electronic Search System (http://tess2.uspto.gov/). TESS is for searching DEAD and LIVE, pending and registered USPTO Trademarks and viewing Trademark images.

How much is a trademark worth?

Trademarks can have no value, or can be very valuable indeed – it all depends on the business associated with the mark!

What is the cheapest way to trademark?

The basic cost to trademark a business name ranges from $225 to $600 per trademark class. This is the cost to submit your trademark application to the USPTO. The easiest and least expensive way to register your trademark is online, through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS).

How do I trademark a name for free?

You can not register a trademark for free. However, you can establish something known as a "common law trademark" for free, simply by opening for business. The benefit of relying on common law trademark rights is that it's free, and you don't need to do any specific work filling out forms, etc.

Can you trademark a name already in use but not trademarked?

1. Can You File for a Trademark That Exists? Updated November 12, 2020: If you're wondering, "can you trademark something that already exists," the simple answer is "no." Generally speaking, if somebody has used a trademark before you, you can't register the trademark for yourself.

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if the trademark registration has lapsed can i use it i'm going to answer that question in the next four minutes i'm angela langlotz trademark and copyright attorney i'm going to spend our time today answering a viewer question so jason bowden distal this is for you jason messaged me and he asked i have a question if a trademark is dead or cancelled and a company hasn't used it within 10 or more years is it safe to register it for my company okay so you go into the trademark database you see the mark that you want to file and you go to look at it and it's dead it's dead so you think wahoo i can use it well not so fast not so fast you might not be able to use it we need to do a little bit more digging now remember that trademark rights are acquired through use right not just registration you have to keep using the mark in order to maintain your trademark rights if you don't use the mark then your trademark rights can be lost irrespective of your registration status so we have to very carefully look at this so just because somebody had their trademark lapse okay and it can lapse for a number of reasons it could have been cancelled can be canceled for non-renewal it can be cancelled because somebody else filed a cancellation proceeding against that trademark it can be cancelled because somebody went in and said we are abandoning this trademark okay so we have to look at the record and see exactly what happened if it's cancelled because somebody else filed a cancellation proceeding then we probably want to investigate whether the people that filed the cancellation proceeding are still using the trademark that they were using when they filed the trademark cancellation proceeding because that mark that they they were using was probably the reason why they had the trademark registration in question canceled right we also have to look at this just because a mark is canceled that doesn't mean that you can still use it because a subsequent applicant may have come in between the time the trademark registration lapsed and the time that you looked at it and got all excited there may have been someone else come in and register a mark that now would be considered confusingly similar to the mark that you're proposing to use so the the bottom line is you really need to look at the record and consider all of the possibilities when you are looking at using any mark not just an abandoned mark but in general if somebody hasn't used a trademark for a number of years we usually say two if you haven't used the trademark and you don't have what we call excusable non-use then the trademark rights would lapse you may still have a trademark registration but somebody could come in and petition to cancel your mark for non-use so if you don't use your trademark the bottom line is you're likely to you to lose it either because you can't renew because you're no longer using the mark or because somebody else sees that you're no longer using it and files a cancellation proceeding so either of those things are possible and there's always the wild card of some intervening filing going on that may also affect your ability to use that trademark that's been canceled so jason i hope this helps you i'm going to tag you in this video so that you know that i answered your question if anyone else has questions you can drop them into the comments underneath the video i will answer them in a future live if you would like more trademark goodness i have a youtube channel you can just go to youtube and search trademark doctor you'll find me there you can also find me on facebook at facebook.com forward slash trademark doctor and online at trademarkdoctor.net

Thanks for your comment Ken Tensley, have a nice day.
- Morgan Ruffin, Staff Member

hi I'm Andre mink of the father of trademark factory the only firm in the world that offers trade marking services with a predictable result for predictable budgets because our trademark agents and trademark attorneys will help you trademark your brand with a free comprehensive trademark search for a single all-inclusive flat fee with a hundred-percent money-back guarantee I am famous for explaining intellectual property so that a nine year old would understand and today's question gonna answer is what happens if you don't renew your trademark registration on time so after your trademark registers in most countries you get that registration for ten years that you can renew for another 10 and then another 10 and another 10 in Canada that period is 15 years probably gonna be 10 years soon but for now it's 15 and another 15 and another 15 if you need to renew so the question is what happens if you don't renew your trademark registration after that 10 or 15 years and what happens is that your trademark will be considered abandoned so the trademarks office will not send you any reminders what they're gonna do is they're gonna sit and wait and see if you yourself remember or your lawyers or your trademark agents our trademark attorneys are gonna remind you to renew your trademark in time because if you don't the assumption is you're not really interested in protecting the brand and one of the functions of a trademark office is to clear out what they call the deadwood so if the trademark owner is not taking the steps to maintain registration they assume that the trademark owner is not interested and by doing that they clear out the way for new people for new companies to claim that same brand and you cannot usually revive your trademark registration once it's abandoned it's abandoned if you're still interested in having that brand if you're lucky enough that nobody else jumps ahead of you yes you can file a new trademark application for the same trademark and hopefully you're going to be able to get that and interestingly sometimes what happens is because the requirements and just local regulations with the trademarks office sometimes change what was trademark Apple 10 or 20 or 30 years ago may not necessarily be registrable now so it's not an issue with renewals so there is no new examination of your trademark application so if your trademark registered 50 years ago and the rules changed but your trademark is registered it's easy for you to renew it they're no they're not gonna say well you know what the rules change that you can't renew it anymore but if you let it lapse and it gets abandoned then you have to file a new one so the new trademark application will be examined based on new rules and that doesn't guarantee you that the new one will also be registered so it's very it's extremely important not to miss those deadlines and if you file your trademark yourself make sure that you triple check to put it in your calendar 10 years or 15 years down the road to renew your trademark and if you have somebody else to do this for you then make sure that they're still around that they are not going to forget and that they're still taking care of this and again with trademark facture obviously that's one of the things we do for our clients whenever we register your trademark we'll put it everything in in in our docketing system to make sure that whenever your renewal time comes we'll will not forget about this and well notify you can say well are you interested in renewing that brand and just to give you an idea of renewal costs I'm a nominal so the government feel be a few hundred dollars our fee will be your honor dollars depending on the package that you chose so if you've been in business with that brand for 10 or 15 years renewal costs are going to be the least of your concerns this is just one of many short videos where I'm providing specific no BS answers to your questions about trademarks so subscribe now and get notified whenever the next video goes live seriously subscribe because there's a lot of information that I'm sharing and if you got some value out of this today I can guarantee you there's gonna be a lot of other videos that will help you protect your brand and speaking of protecting your brand if you have a brand that you want to protect order your free comprehensive trademark search with register ability opinion from trademark factory by filling out the form at free TM Sarge com3 TM Sarge calm and we'll we'll be happy to take it from there I'll see you in the next video you

Thanks escrimis5 your participation is very much appreciated
- Morgan Ruffin

About the author

Morgan Ruffin

I've studied escapology at Wayne State College in Wayne and I am an expert in machine learning. I usually feel good. My previous job was logging worker supervisor I held this position for 23 years, I love talking about trainspotting and heliskiing. Huge fan of Mia Rose Frampton I practice sailing and collect comic books.