What examination does the Trademarks Office conduct?
A Trademarks Office examiner searches for potentially confusing trademarks, and assesses other potential obstacles to registration, as discussed above. If the examiner raises no objections, the application is approved for publication in the Trademarks Journal. For a two-month interval after publication, the application is subject to opposition from other parties. Oppositions, which are relatively uncommon, may for example be based upon prior use of an allegedly confusing trademark. It typically takes up to a year to “prosecute” an application through all of the stages, assuming that there are no examiner’s objections or opposition. In this context, prosecution typically consists of responding to any requirements or objections that may be raised by an examiner, paying registration fees and complying with formal requirements for the trademark registration to be issued.
