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TrademarkNow is a company focused on transforming the working lives of professionals in the industry by virtue of creating the possibility of instant access to information about trademarks and their owners all over the globe. We envision a world in which search and watch reports contain not only comprehensive results but are ranked in order of threat level to permit speed in an industry in which faster responses are increasingly critical. We are committed to the mission of providing the kind of access to the key data that our clients, colleagues and professionals would have dreamed of - if they had thought it was possible.

As we celebrate the 5th Birthday of TrademarkNow, we take a look back at the inspiration and history behind TrademarkNow. Our CEO, Mikael Kolehmainen, explains how and why he and the other founders developed the platform.

In 2013 and in the first edition of 'Tomorrow's Lawyers', Richard Susskind predicted that the practice of law would experience greater evolution in the next 20 years than it had in the past 200. 4 years on and the next edition states that the first one is already out of date! One of the major sources of change mentioned in the book and indeed between professionals in the industry, is the use of technology in the field of law.

Here is where we need to stop and challenge some of our assumptions. Is the use of technology in the field of law a change? Or is it a response to change?

The POTUS published a tweet containing the mysterious 'covfefe' at 12:06 am on Wednesday, 31st May and predictably enough, a flood of applications to trademark the not-a-word began flooding in shortly thereafter.

More knowledgeable commentators than I have discussed the merits of the various applications and which, if any, will succeed. These discussions, for the most part, have focused on the applications submitted to the USPTO. A cursory glance at ExaMatch shows no fewer than 13 applications from 4 different countries with a filing date of 31st May.

The first US trademark application was filed at 8:46 am (EST) for the mark ‘COVFEFE COFFEE’ in Classes 30 (for coffee and coffee substitutes) and 40 (coffee-house and snack-bar services). But was it the first trademark application filed for ‘COVFEFE’?

Much of the conversation around artificial intelligence and legal technology has it's sights very firmly focused on the future and rarely touches on the here and now. In our personal lives, AI of one kind (and there are many) or another has quietly arrived without much in the way of fanfare at all. For some people, a combination of the burgeoning Internet of Things and AI will mean that their coffee machine can remind their fridge to order more milk. It has the potential to quietly solve many problems...like finally ending the rows about who put the empty carton back in the fridge.

In much the same way, AI and machine learning have already arrived in many law firms and legal departments. But do we know how many and to what extent?

Sometimes even simple questions can be difficult to answer.

Such is the case with the questions trademark attorneys face daily. Questions like, “Has someone already obtained rights to a similar mark in this market?”

Non-legal professionals, who are accustomed to quickly finding the information they need via Google searches, would probably be shocked to learn just how cumbersome the EUTM trademark search process can be.

Your organization likely spends several hours shuffling from database to database, trying to determine if a trademark candidate is worth the cost of a full EUTM search.

True or False: conducting an EU trademark search is super expensive and takes too long?

What if we said that was false?

With new technology-assisted search, companies now have more control over the EU trademark search process than ever before.

Unfortunately, the majority of in-house counsel still rely on outsourcing more than they prefer. Whether that means turning everything over to outside counsel, or purchasing a costly legacy search report, companies have grown accustomed to spending an astounding amount of money for something lacking in both speed of delivery and flexibility.

It was World No Tobacco Day last week  and for those fighting a battle against smoking globally, the UK Supreme Court decision early in May must be cause for celebration. The Court refused an appeal from British American Tobacco against the introduction of plain paper packaging for tobacco products.

Can you trust the search results from global trademark databases? Or more accurately, can you interpret them?

PTO offices worldwide have yet to adopt universal status categories for registered marks, making it challenging to understand which trademarks registered globally are “dead” and which are “live.”

Even more challenging is the fact that global mark results don’t always provide enough insight into the full landscape around a given mark. With many PTO databases, and other search tools, it’s nearly impossible to determine whether a trademark search result has been subject to an opposition or is in a grace period. Additionally, search users don’t always have the ability to access related trademark information for ambiguous search results.

When naming products and services on behalf of clients, branding agencies face a particular dilemma: How can we ensure our best ideas will pass the trademark application process?

The unfortunate reality is they can't - at least, not 100% of the time. With that said, brand managers often face more trepidation than legal professionals when it comes to evaluating brand names.

Without an in-depth understanding of trademark law, they run into three common problems:

For the IP offices around the globe, the need to maintain a clear and (perhaps more crucially) effective register that meets the often conflicting needs of trademark owners, poses an ever-increasing challenge. This challenge has been exacerbated by the advent of the information age, millennial attention spans, often quicker brand life-cycles and rapid globalisation of products that catch fire with consumers. Capitalisation of these fast-moving, multi-jurisdictional markets is increasingly problematic and frustrating for business owners confronted with a clearance and registration process often counted in months.