Registration wait time increasing now.

This is a common question from brand owners, and an important one. After all, registering a trademark is a significant step in protecting a brand.

Over the past few years, it has been taking longer and longer to get a trademark registration from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”).

From 2008 to 2019, the average time it took the USPTO to issue a first office action—the initial review of an application—held fairly steady between 2.8 to 3.4 months. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2020, however, the time until the first office action began climbing, reaching 7.4 months in the first quarter of 2022.

To put it in perspective, applicants now wait more than half a year before finding out if there are other marks blocking their registrations or if there are other issues. This creates a myriad of new considerations for trademark owners, particularly those considering foreign protection.

Where previously an applicant would know whether its U.S. application met with Examiner approval before filing an application with the commonly-used Madrid international filing system, now they are left with the decision to risk the Madrid application based on the unknown success of the priority U.S. application or potentially undertaking numerous national applications to avoid reliance on the U.S. application. This is because any application filed through the Madrid system is dependent on the status of the home-country application for five years. If the U.S. application is abandoned, the applications or registrations elsewhere under the Madrid filing system would also be abandoned or canceled. For the most part, trademark applications are considered on a first-come-first-served basis, but there are steps an applicant can take throughout the process to make it more efficient.