Keeping a Trademark Alive: Post Registration Maintenance Renewal and Incontestability

54 questions on keeping a trademark alive, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Can a foreign-domiciled registrant file its own maintenance documents?
• Can a late response to a post-registration office action be excused?
• Can an abandoned trademark be revived?
• Can I correct an error in my trademark registration certificate?
• Can I lose a trademark even if I file every maintenance document on time?
• Can I make a token sale to avoid abandonment?
• Can I rely on the USPTO's courtesy reminder emails?
• Can you walk through the actual filing dates for a registration?
• Does pausing a product line count as excusable nonuse?
• Does the mark in my specimen have to match the registration exactly?
• Does using a trademark as a verb doom it?
• Do I need to record a trademark assignment when I buy a brand?
• Do I really need to delete goods or services I am no longer selling?
• Do trademark owners have a duty to police their marks?
• How did the 2025 USPTO fee restructuring affect maintenance filings?
• How do abandonment and excusable nonuse relate to each other?
• How does a company lose a mark while thinking it is monetizing one?
• How do I protect my brand from becoming generic?
• How do I renew a Madrid Protocol-based U.S. registration?
• How long does a U.S. trademark registration last?
• How should I build a trademark docketing system?
• Is the Section 15 incontestability declaration worth filing?
• Should I file the Section 8 and Section 9 together?
• What amendments to a registration are permitted?
• What are the essential takeaways on keeping a trademark alive?
• What are the rules for submitting a substitute specimen?
• What are the special rules for web-page specimens?
• What cases establish the naked licensing doctrine?
• What counts as an acceptable specimen for a maintenance filing?
• What deadwood-clearing tools did the Trademark Modernization Act create?
• What does a defensible trademark license look like?
• What does a well-managed registration look like over its whole life?
• What does federal trademark registration actually buy you?
• What does incontestability actually protect against?
• What happens if I fail a USPTO proof-of-use audit?
• What happens if I miss a Section 8 or Section 9 deadline?
• What happens if the USPTO issues a post-registration office action?
• What is an assignment in gross and why is it invalid?
• What is a Section 15 declaration of incontestability?
• What is a Section 71 affidavit and who files one?
• What is a Section 8 declaration of continued use?
• What is a Section 9 renewal?
• What is excusable nonuse and when does it apply?
• What is genericide and how does a trademark become generic?
• What is naked licensing and why is it dangerous?
• What is the trademark maintenance schedule?
• What is the USPTO's Post-Registration Proof of Use Audit Program?
• What is trademark abandonment?
• What must a Section 8 declaration contain?
• What should a trademark portfolio review cover?
• What should I do if my company is planning a logo redesign?
• What use records should a trademark owner keep?
• When and how do I file a Section 15 declaration?
• Which trademarks have been lost to genericide?