5 Ways Technology Can Improve the Trademark Renewal Process

Technology can streamline the trademark renewal process, easing the administrative burden and freeing up your time for more substantial matters, but which service or solution should you choose? We set out five ways technology can improve trademark renewals and nine key questions to ask when selecting a provider.

Not only is the trademark renewal process highly administrative, but it is also high risk. For each trademark renewal, brand owners and their legal advisors must adhere to strict deadlines and the formalities of the different trademark registries worldwide. This can be incredibly time-consuming for organizations with sizable trademark portfolios. 

Most attendees to our recent webinar on trademark renewals shared that they handled portfolios of more than 2,500 trademarks for their organizations. However, even the brand owners who attended with smaller portfolios found the administrative demands and pace of trademark renewals challenging to manage. As the panelists discussed, the right technology can automate that administrative workload, inform strategic decisions, and also reduce the risk of missed deadlines.

Five Ways Technology Improves the Trademark Renewal Process

1. 1. Leverages Knowledge 
   There is no set trademark renewal process or timeline worldwide, so brand owners must rely on their legal advisor or network of trademark agents to keep on top of the local rules that apply in specific jurisdictions of interest. This can generate huge volumes of correspondence. The right technology will centralize emails, data, and documents while enhancing collaboration between internal and external teams and recording vital knowledge for future use. 
    
2. 2. Frees Up Time and Resources
   Automating time-consuming processes, such as the trademark renewal process, is critical to resource management for IP professionals, whether they work in law firms or in-house IP departments. For those in private practice, tech-enabled processes boost competitiveness and improve client experience; for those working in-house, technology helps to free up vital resources for more strategic tasks. 
    
3. 3. Centralizes IP Activities 
   It is still common to find that different country offices in the same company or law firm use separate processes, technologies, or suppliers to manage tasks such as trademark renewals. While those disparate solutions may work effectively for local IP managers, they miss one of the main benefits of organization-wide technology: namely, the ability to centralize, consolidate, track, and report effectively on global activities. 
    
4. 4. Streamlines Budget and Invoice Management 
   Alongside managing the disparate documents, formalities, and correspondence required by local IP offices comes the equal challenge of managing cost estimates, official fees, and invoices from local agents. Not only do such invoices come in a range of different formats and breakdowns, but a variety of different payment terms and reciprocity agreements can apply. Linking your IP management system to your invoicing system (e.g. via web API) enables you to consolidate, automate, and track progress more effectively. This allows for proactive cost management by providing the necessary insight (and time) for supplier cost reviews and negotiations. 
    
5. 5. Enables Customization to Fit Your Unique Needs 
   Most off-the-shelf IP management systems include default workflows for fundamental IP maintenance and portfolio management tasks. By reviewing internal processes to identify preferred ways of working, you can not only customize those workflows to reflect your preferred processes, but also identify a whole range of repetitive tasks that are ripe for automation.

Why Choose Questel for Your Trademark Renewal Process?

There are many advantages to entrusting your trademark renewals to Questel. As a certified and approved payment entity for trademark renewals worldwide, you can have complete confidence in our ability to make payments on your behalf at the different national IP offices. 

We provide access to a single senior point of contact who takes an active role in managing your renewals. 

You can track instructions and progress 24/7 via our secure online portal or integrate data directly into your IPMS using our web API integration. 

We centralize all invoices on our platform, so in-house teams can track costs and budget directly through the system, while IP law firms can manage multiple client portfolios simultaneously. 

We update pricing automatically every month to ensure complete cost transparency. And we can save you money thanks to the volume-based discounts we have negotiated with our global agent network. 

→ Without exception, clients make an overall cost saving by moving their in-house renewals administration over to Questel. Discover how much you could save by contacting us for an estimate today. 

Our trademark renewal process can be fully customized to meet your needs; for example, to accommodate organizations that prefer to use their existing network of agents (or a combination of preferred agents and agents in our global network). 

Our trademark renewal service also integrates directly with our modern Equinox IP management systems (for law firms and corporations of all sizes), which optimize the full lifecycle of IP management, from docketing and data verification to deadlines, discounts, and disbursements. 

How To Select a Trademark Renewal Provider

In our webinar on trademark renewals, our experts discussed five common pain points when managing or outsourcing the trademark renewal process: 

• Multiple countries working on different files, 
• Managing documents that need legalization or notarization, 
• Separate invoicing, 
• Lack of transparency on official fees, and 
• Lack of integration with the renewals platform. 

→ Is your current trademark renewal provider delivering the service you need? Download our nine questions to ask when reviewing or selecting a provider. 

Our solutions are designed to make you and your team’s lives easier by connecting all the information you work on, from database to renewal platform to invoicing system and timesheet. 

To find out how Questel can support you to streamline your trademark renewal process, book a consultation today.