On today's episode of the podcast we're analyzing our Not AVG Law trademark data, the trademark process, and what it's like to file a trademark when you work with us.

Not AVG Law started filing trademarks in early Spring 2023. I have a law school degree and a Master's in Tax Law, but when I started my business I was teaching myself additional areas of law that I hadn't taken courses on in law school because I started out focused on health law. Trademarks was not a specialty when I started my business so around 2019 I started referring clients to a trademark attorney I knew, only to find out she'd started ghosting clients and later had issues with her state's bar association for signing contracts, taking money and not completing the work. I started referring clients to another attorney was wonderful, but I decided I could and should do this on my own. I was leaving revenue on the table and a lot of our clients needed this.

In 2023 I took a $3,000 program on trademarks, got coaching from an experienced trademark attorney, and I started taking on clients. A few months into that I came up with the idea of Trademark Quickies, a search report we run that gives us the info to say "This mark looks worth pursuing," or "This mark looks like it'd be very tough to file."

Book your Trademark Quickie at notavglaw.com/trademarks

The Quickie idea stemmed from the fact that I pay for a single day license of a sophisticated attorney software to run trademark search reports for clients and I wanted to offset the cost while also helping people be able to start their trademark search before they pay us for the entire filing service and then have us search. So I'd open the search once a month and fill it from the waitlist I had up on our site that people could add their name to at any time. Today, you can book them at any time without a waitlist.

Since starting in 2023, I've booked 191 Trademark Quickie searches and run 280 (the discrepancy being a BOGO search promo and the searches that are included for our 1-on-1 monthly clients. The Trademark Quickie Search service has proven to be beneficial not just for clients, but at $100 it's a comfortable price point to get started on your trademark without being something that just sounds fun, they're buying from a place of interest in possibly filing a trademark.

Trademark Quickies by the Numbers:
Searches Booked: 191
Quickie Search Revenue: $15,100
Trademark Filing Revenue generated: $103,760

The Trademark Filing Process:

1. Book a Trademark Quickie Search. You'll receive two reports - one with all the details from the software that pulls any trademarks that could be confusingly similar along with our report summary and determination with a green, yellow, orange or red flag on the likelihood of filing success. Of our 280 searches, 171 have gotten green flags, 87 have gotten yellow, 17 have gotten orange flags and 5 have gotten red flags meaning 92% of these trademarks have been worth pursuing.

2. Apply for a trademark. If your search resulted in anything other than red, you have the option to work with us to file your trademark, and we do offer a discount to our Quickie Searchers who book their filing within a week of their Quickie results. Of the 280 Quickie searches, we've booked 97 trademarks (a 35% conversion rate)

3. Wait. Once your trademark is filed it can an examiner from the USPTO 8-12 months to review your application. If they see any issues, they'll give an office action. We're still waiting on results for many of those 97 filings, but of the ones we've filed and heard on, we've only had 5 or 6 "denied" meaning the USPTO said there is a confusingly similar trademark and you can pursue an argument if you choose to. Of these 5, only one was a green flag (I was newer to offering this service), 3 yellow flags, and one orange flag. This gives us a 98% filing success rate on green flags and 91% on yellow flags which is where I want it to be so the flag system is working appropriately.

Tracking this data has helped me give better filing odds to our clients.