Genericness Defense and Prevention Checklist: Evidence, Style Rules, and Survey Design

By Casey Scott McKay · 2024-01-17

This checklist runs a genericness matter from prevention through trial in twelve phases a practitioner can work top to bottom. Phases 1 through 7 build the program: triaging which marks are exposed, coining the generic noun competitors will use instead of your brand, deploying style rules, auditing your own back catalog, binding licensees with a usage exhibit, monitoring language rather than only filings, and building an evidence archive that authenticates under Fed. R. Evid. 902(13) and 37 C.F.R. 2.122(e)(2). Phase 8 works up an attack on someone else's registration, from the $50 letter of protest to a petition to cancel under Section 14(3), and Phase 9 covers survey commissioning: Teflon versus Thermos, universe, controls, and Daubert exposure. Phases 10 through 12 cover the first thirty days after a refusal or petition lands, the record that defends the mark, and the annual review. Every item carries the governing rule, the fee, the form, or the trap, and one invented matter runs through all twelve phases.

IP and Technology > Trademarks | Checklist | Published 17 January 2024 - Updated 9 June 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. This checklist runs a genericness matter from prevention through trial in twelve phases a practitioner can work top to bottom. Phases 1 through 7 build the program: triaging which marks are exposed, coining the generic noun competitors will use instead of your brand, deploying style rules, auditing your own back catalog, binding licensees with a usage exhibit, monitoring language rather than only filings, and building an evidence archive that authenticates under Fed. R. Evid. 902(13) and 37 C.F.R. § 2.122(e)(2). Phase 8 works up an attack on someone else's registration, from the $50 letter of protest under 37 C.F.R. § 2.149 to a petition to cancel under 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3). Phase 9 covers survey commissioning: Teflon versus Thermos, universe, controls, and Daubert exposure. Phases 10 through 12 cover the first thirty days after a refusal or petition lands, the record that defends the mark, and the annual review. Every item carries the governing rule, the fee, the form, or the trap, and one invented matter runs through all twelve phases.

Keywords: genericness checklist · genericide prevention · trademark style guide · generic noun · primary significance · teflon survey · thermos survey · petition to cancel · letter of protest · 15 usc 1064(3) · trademark evidence archive · notice of reliance · ttab cancellation · survey universe · daubert · trademark policing program · licensee usage schedule · genericness refusal · tmep 1209.01(c) · wayback machine evidence

What this checklist is for

Working a mark through the whole genericness lifecycle: keeping it out of the public domain, and litigating the question when someone puts it in play. This is the operational distillation of two companion documents and does not re-teach their doctrine. The law is in Genericide: How Escalator, Aspirin, and Thermos Lost Their Trademarks; the reasoning behind each line below is in Preventing Genericide: A Brand Owner's Guide. The curated path across the cluster is the Distinctiveness and Genericness Toolkit.

Who should use it. In-house counsel and brand-protection managers for Phases 1-7 and 12; litigation counsel for Phases 8-11; outside counsel building a first-year program for a category creator; and anyone who needs a word somebody else has registered.

What you'll need before you start. The certificate and TSDR status printout for every mark in scope, with the exact identification and class numbers; read access to the CMS, help center, press archive, and PDF library; every agreement that grants trademark rights; a capture tool that records URL, timestamp, and file hash; advertising spend by year and channel; and a named custodian who can sign a declaration in five years' time.

The worked example. Halcyon Labs, Inc., a Providence roaster, launched the first shelf-stable freeze-dried cold-brew coffee disc in 2019 and called it CHILLPUCK. U.S. Reg. No. 6,088,214 issued 23 June 2020 from Serial No. 88/512,309, covering "coffee; coffee-based beverages" in Class 30. By 2026 four competitors were selling "chillpucks," and on 4 March 2026 one of them, Northgate Provisions LLC, petitioned to cancel under 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3) — Cancellation No. 92085117.

| Phase | What you accomplish | Owner | Elapsed | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Triage the portfolio and pick the marks that get the program | Trademark counsel | 1 day | | 2 | Coin the generic name and align the identification | Counsel + CMO | 1 week | | 3 | Write and deploy the style rules | Counsel + marketing ops | 3-4 weeks | | 4 | Audit your own back catalog | Paralegal + content editor | 4-8 weeks | | 5 | Bind licensees, co-packers, and resellers | Transactional counsel | Renewal cycle | | 6 | Police the language | Brand protection | Ongoing | | 7 | Build the evidence archive | Counsel + custodian | 2 days, then annual | | 8 | Attack someone else's mark as generic | Litigation counsel | 4-12 weeks | | 9 | Commission or dismantle the survey | Counsel + survey expert | 8-16 weeks | | 10 | Stabilize after an attack lands | Litigation counsel | 30 days | | 11 | Build and try the defense record | Litigation counsel | 24-48 months | | 12 | Re-score annually | Trademark counsel | 90 min/mark/year |

Phase 1 — Scope and triage

[ ] Pull every live registration and application into the inventory with the mark, class, exact identification, registration date, and next maintenance deadline.
- Why. The identification sets the genus, so exposure cannot be scored without it. Magic Wand, Inc. v. RDB, Inc., 940 F.2d 638, 640 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Record it in the Trademark Portfolio Inventory — Template.
[ ] Score each mark on the six-factor risk table in the companion guide, beside its renewal date.
[ ] Score the word the market writes — lower case, plural, verbed — not the word on the certificate.
- Trap. Halcyon scored CHILLPUCK and missed "chillpucks," the string that actually appears 340 times across its own properties.
[ ] Flag every first-of-its-kind product and every mark with high category dominance. Dominance is a risk factor, not a comfort.
[ ] Assign a tier: 7+ gets Phases 2-7 and 12; 4-6 gets style rules plus annual monitoring; 3 or below, style rules only.
[ ] Run triage inside the Annual Trademark Portfolio Review Checklist rather than as a separate project; see also Building and Managing a Trademark Portfolio.

Phase 2 — Coin the generic name and set the genus

[ ] Draft five candidate generic nouns and test each: a competitor would print it, it names the genus rather than your advantages, it survives shortening, it is not somebody else's mark.
- Why. A designation cannot be non-generic unless a viable alternative exists. If you cannot tell the Board what competitors should say instead, you have conceded the case. Genesee Brewing Co. v. Stroh Brewing Co., 124 F.3d 137, 148 (2d Cir. 1997); A.J. Canfield Co. v. Honickman, 808 F.2d 291, 305-06 (3d Cir. 1986).
[ ] Clear the winner with a full clearance search and keep the screen.
[ ] Write the generic noun into the identification on the next filing, and amend any pending application under 37 C.F.R. § 2.71(a) where the ID is broader than the product.
- Worked example. Halcyon's registered ID reads "coffee; coffee-based beverages." Its 2026 application reads "freeze-dried cold-brew coffee discs" in Class 30 — narrower, and it names the alternative in the Office's own file.
- Trap. A broad ID exposes you rather than insulating you: a term is generic for a category if it names any part of it. In re Cordua Restaurants, Inc., 823 F.3d 594, 605 (Fed. Cir. 2016). See Drafting an Identification of Goods and Services.
[ ] Require mark-plus-noun in the launch press release, the product-page headline, and the first line of the data sheet — not only in the footer notice.

Phase 3 — Write and deploy the style rules

[ ] Reduce proper use to ten rules on two pages, each with a right and a wrong example in the client's own mark: adjective not noun, never a verb, never plural, never possessive, never altered, visually distinct, correct notice symbol, no descriptive use, attribution line, named contact.
[ ] Build the notice-symbol schedule as Exhibit A — mark, registration number, classes, and the goods for which ® is permitted.
- Authority. 15 U.S.C. § 1111 bars profits and damages absent notice or actual knowledge; misapplying ® is curable but not free, TMEP § 906.04; In re Bose Corp., 580 F.3d 1240, 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2009); Fraud on the Trademark Office.
[ ] Add a jurisdiction annex before shipping the guide abroad; ® on goods unregistered in the destination country is unlawful in several countries. International Trademark Toolkit.
[ ] Load the forbidden forms into the CMS linter as a regex fired on save, and name one owner in marketing ops — a person, not a team.
[ ] Attach the guide to every agency, freelancer, and PR contract with pre-publication review and a non-waiver sentence, and fix the support-macro library and press-release boilerplate first — the highest-volume, least-supervised text the company produces.
[ ] Train marketing, PR, support, sales engineering, product, and the patent team, and keep the signed acknowledgments.
- Trap. Training only marketing. Colt Defense LLC v. Bushmaster Firearms, Inc., 486 F.3d 701, 706-07 (1st Cir. 2007), turned partly on the registrant's own patent application.

Phase 4 — Audit your own back catalog

[ ] Crawl and grep the site, help center, press archive, PDF library, app-store listings, video captions, job postings, engineering blog, and every patent filing for the mark in its dangerous forms: lower case, plural, possessive, preceded by "a," or verbed.
- Why. The owner's own generic use is near-dispositive; courts treat it as raising an estoppel. Colt Defense, 486 F.3d at 707; Retail Services, Inc. v. Freebies Publishing, 364 F.3d 535, 545 (4th Cir. 2004).
[ ] Pull your own Wayback Machine captures back to launch, and triage every hit into fix now, fix at next revision, or cannot be fixed. Clear the first bucket in a fortnight.
[ ] Run the audit under counsel direction and title the findings memo with care.
- Trap. A memo called "Instances Where We Used Our Mark Generically" is the best exhibit a petitioner could hope for. Fix the copy, keep the analysis privileged, and stop deleting anything once litigation is reasonably anticipated.
[ ] Send no correction letter until your own site complies.
- Worked example. Halcyon's audit returned 340 non-compliant strings; 40% sat in spec sheets and media kits on the CDN, not on the website.

Phase 5 — Bind the channel

[ ] Add a trademark usage exhibit — not merely a quality-control clause — to every licence, co-packing, reseller, co-marketing, marketplace-vendor, and market-development-fund agreement.
- Why. Quality control keeps the licence from being naked; usage control keeps the licensee from writing the other side's exhibit list. 15 U.S.C. § 1127 reaches the owner's "acts of omission as well as commission." See Naked Licensing and Drafting a Trademark License That Survives.
[ ] Put six things in the exhibit: adjectival use with the generic noun, the notice symbol, pre-first-use approval with a stated response window, records and inspection, a cure period, and an acknowledgment that all use inures to the licensor. Drop it into the Trademark License Agreement — Template.
[ ] Sample two licensees a year in writing and file the samples in the Phase 7 archive.
- Trap. An approval right you never exercise is worse than none: it proves you had control over the licensee's generic copy and did nothing with it.
[ ] Sweep retailer-written co-op advertising separately: you fund the ad, the retailer writes the copy, and it says "chillpucks."

Phase 6 — Police the language

[ ] Run four feeds: a trademark watch, editorial alerts on the mark plus generic collocations, monthly marketplace sweeps, and a quarterly check of dictionaries, Wikipedia, trade glossaries, and standards documents. See Trademark Watch Services.
[ ] Configure the watch to surface third-party applications disclaiming your word, not only confusingly similar filings — weak alone, corrosive in volume.
[ ] Clip the good usage too: every article that writes "CHILLPUCK discs, made by Halcyon Labs." Mixed media evidence can defeat a challenger outright. Elliott v. Google, Inc., 860 F.3d 1151, 1161 (9th Cir. 2017).
[ ] Route each misuse by category: competitor in commerce → cease-and-desist; licensee → contract notice with cure period; journalist → educational correction letter; dictionary or standards body → formal letter; customer on social → no letter, ever.
[ ] Write correction letters that name the article, state the registration number and the generic term, offer a usable substitute, enclose a one-page style card, and say expressly that the letter is not a complaint.
- Trap. Any mention of infringement, remedies, "demand," or a response deadline. Editorial reference is not actionable, and a threat invites a declaratory judgment action, a fee argument under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), and a news cycle. See Descriptive and Nominative Fair Use.
[ ] Escalate competitor category-name use up the ladder instead: Sending an Effective Cease-and-Desist Letter, then the Pre-Litigation Enforcement Checklist.
[ ] Log every letter, reply, and published corrective notice as a chronology.
- Authority. Plyboo America Inc. v. Smith & Fong Co., 51 U.S.P.Q.2d 1633 (T.T.A.B. 1999); In re Trek 2000 International Ltd., 97 U.S.P.Q.2d 1106 (T.T.A.B. 2010).

Phase 7 — Build the evidence archive

[ ] Capture annually and keep indefinitely, keyed to the mark: home and product pages, packaging artwork, one ad per campaign, spend by channel, third-party trademark use, the policing chronology, competitor use of your coined generic noun, brand-tracking data, and the prosecution file.
[ ] Capture with a tool that records the URL, the timestamp, and a hash, and keep the native file beside the PDF.
- Authority. Fed. R. Evid. 902(13)-(14) self-authenticate certified machine-generated records and hash-verified copies. At the Board, internet materials come in by notice of reliance only if the printout shows the access date and source URL. 37 C.F.R. § 2.122(e)(2); Safer, Inc. v. OMS Investments, Inc., 94 U.S.P.Q.2d 1031 (T.T.A.B. 2010).
- Trap. A capture missing the URL footer is inadmissible on a notice of reliance and must be re-taken years later, if the page still exists.
[ ] Name one custodian, keep the name stable across years, and have that person sign the capture log. See the Evidence and Expert Witness Toolkit for Trademark and Copyright Disputes.
[ ] Run a short Teflon-format tracking study every three years for a tier-one mark — same universe, same instrument each wave — through counsel as consulting work under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(D). Budget $12,000-$35,000 a wave against $75,000-$200,000 for a litigation-grade survey.
- Trap. Starting the archive the week the demand letter arrives. Every capture is then dated after the dispute, and the hold freezes any tidying. The archive's value is that it is boring and old.

Phase 8 — Work up a genericness attack

[ ] Plead entitlement to a statutory cause of action specifically: the product you sell, the word you need, the damage the registration causes. 15 U.S.C. § 1064; Corcamore, LLC v. SFM, LLC, 978 F.3d 1298, 1303-05 (Fed. Cir. 2020).
[ ] Pick the vehicle against the calendar and the budget.

| Vehicle | Fee | Timing | When it fits | |---|---|---|---| | Letter of protest | $50 | Before publication, or within 30 days after | Public documentary evidence, no adversary proceeding | | Notice of opposition | $600/class | 30 days from publication, extendable | Caught pre-registration | | Petition to cancel, § 1064(3) | $600/class | Any time; no five-year bar | Any registration | | Counterclaim at the TTAB | Per class | Rides the main case | Required of a defendant | | Defence plus counterclaim in court | Litigation | 12-36 months | Court may cancel under § 1119 |

[ ] File the letter of protest with an itemized evidence index, and price in that the decision whether to enter it is final and non-reviewable. 15 U.S.C. § 1051(f); 37 C.F.R. § 2.149; TMEP §§ 1715, 1715.01(b) (volume limits).
[ ] If you are a TTAB defendant, counterclaim; genericness pleaded as an affirmative defence against a pleaded registration is a prohibited collateral attack. 37 C.F.R. §§ 2.106(b)(3), 2.114(b)(3); TBMP § 313. Forum: Federal Court vs. TTAB.
[ ] Gather evidence in this order: the registrant's own use (site, help center, press releases, patent filings, Wayback captures), competitor and trade use, standards documents and industry codes, media use both ways, dictionaries, third-party disclaimer practice. Codified trade use killed ESCALATOR.
[ ] Frame the genus so the term names the category or a recognized part of it, and pick the classes where your proof is strongest. Magic Wand, 940 F.2d at 640; In re Cordua, 823 F.3d at 605; § 1064(3) permits cancellation as to a portion of the goods.
[ ] Plead a § 1068 disclaimer of the generic matter as alternative relief from the outset, and only if the registration is under five years old. Montecash LLC v. Anzar Enterprises, Inc., 95 U.S.P.Q.2d 1060 (T.T.A.B. 2010).
[ ] Ask whether the real case is non-use: expungement and reexamination under 15 U.S.C. §§ 1066a-1066b reach non-use only, and cost far less. Use It or Lose It.
[ ] Price a coexistence covenant permitting your descriptive use before you file.
- Trap. Winning can cost you: free the word and you have a category with a public name and no brand.

Phase 9 — Commission or dismantle the survey

[ ] Decide whether a survey helps at all before spending anything. Tribunals treat surveys as probative mainly where a coined or arbitrary term is alleged to have become generic, and largely irrelevant for ordinary words and compounds. Schwan's IP, LLC v. Kraft Pizza Co., 460 F.3d 971, 976 (8th Cir. 2006); Frito-Lay N. Am., Inc. v. Princeton Vanguard, LLC, 124 U.S.P.Q.2d 1184 (T.T.A.B. 2017).
[ ] Default to Teflon when defending a coined mark; reserve Thermos for corroboration.
- Benchmarks. 68% brand classification defeated the claim in E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. v. Yoshida International, Inc., 393 F. Supp. 502, 526 (E.D.N.Y. 1975); Booking.com ran 74.8%; Google's unrebutted study in Elliott ran over 93%. The Thermos survey was 75% "thermos" to 11% "vacuum bottle."
[ ] Define the universe as actual and prospective purchasers of the goods in the identification, and write the screener before the questionnaire.
- Trap. Surveying the trade when the registration covers consumer goods, or the reverse. Magic Wand, 940 F.2d at 641; Amstar Corp. v. Domino's Pizza, Inc., 615 F.2d 252, 264 (5th Cir. 1980).
[ ] Specify in the protocol: double-blind administration, a brand/common-name tutorial with a mini-test, rotation against order effects, "don't know" offered, verbatim capture, and retention of raw data and dispositions. In a Thermos format, add the follow-ups separating "the category" from "my favourite brand."
[ ] Satisfy Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B) in court; at the Board, disclose experts no later than 30 days before the close of discovery, 37 C.F.R. § 2.120(a)(2)(iii). Admissibility runs through Fed. R. Evid. 702 as amended 1 December 2023 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).
[ ] Attacking the other side's survey, work the universe first, then the training examples, order effects, the leading stimulus, and the unreported dispositions. See Commissioning and Attacking a Trademark Survey and the Reference Guide on Survey Research, Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (3d ed. 2011).

Phase 10 — The first thirty days after an attack

[ ] Docket the clock the day the paper lands, and diagnose whether an office action refuses on genericness alone or on descriptiveness with genericness in the alternative.
- Why. Examiners are instructed not to lead with genericness unless the applicant has claimed § 2(f), so the alternative ground decides whether the file is worth fighting for. TMEP §§ 1209.01(c), 1209.02(a); mechanics in the Office Action Response Toolkit.
[ ] Issue the litigation hold in writing to marketing, PR, support, product, legal ops, and every co-packer, and suspend routine deletion of web archives and marketing files.
[ ] Freeze outbound enforcement; re-evaluate every pending demand asserting the attacked registration.
- Trap. Asserting a registration under genericness attack invites a declaratory judgment counterclaim and, in an exceptional case, fees under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a). See Responding to a Cease-and-Desist Letter.
[ ] Read the identification out loud, decide which classes are defensible, and pull your Wayback captures before commissioning anything.
[ ] Stop assuming age protects you. Cancellation runs "[a]t any time," 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3), and no incontestable right is acquired in a generic name, § 1065(4). See Section 15 Incontestability.
[ ] Run the fight / narrow / settle analysis on the documents, not on the client's confidence.
- Worked example. Halcyon's 2019 press kit said "each chillpuck dissolves in fifteen seconds." Counsel narrowed: surrender the broad Class 30 wording, restrict to freeze-dried cold-brew coffee discs, and offer Northgate a King-Seeley covenant at the discovery conference — lower case only, always preceded by its own house mark, never "original" or "genuine." King-Seeley Thermos Co. v. Aladdin Industries, Inc., 321 F.2d 577 (2d Cir. 1963).

Phase 11 — Build and try the defense record

[ ] Lead with the practice, not the exhibit: annual captures showing adjectival use with the generic noun since launch, and the policing record as a dated chronology with the replies attached.
[ ] Put competitor use of your coined generic term on page one of the brief. That evidence drove the reversal in Trek, 97 U.S.P.Q.2d 1106.
[ ] Count the challenger's media evidence in both directions and check dates; material predating your first use refers to something else. In re Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 828 F.2d 1567, 1570-71 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
[ ] Attack composite dissection and dictionary overreach: definitions of constituent words do not establish how consumers read the whole phrase, Princeton Vanguard, LLC v. Frito-Lay N. Am., Inc., 786 F.3d 960, 967 (Fed. Cir. 2015), and dictionaries are never determinative, Boston Duck Tours, LP v. Super Duck Tours, LLC, 531 F.3d 1, 18 (1st Cir. 2008).
[ ] Name the correct generic term expressly and concede nothing on synonyms — a product may have more than one generic name. Genesee, 124 F.3d at 148; National Nonwovens, Inc. v. Consumer Products Enterprises, Inc., 397 F. Supp. 2d 245, 253 (D. Mass. 2005).
[ ] Buy third-party witnesses; employee testimony carries little probative value. Self-Realization Fellowship Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, 59 F.3d 902, 910 (9th Cir. 1995).
[ ] Ex parte, press the burden and the doubt rule: the examining attorney must support the refusal with clear evidence, and doubt favours publication. TMEP § 1209.01(c)(i); Merrill Lynch, 828 F.2d at 1571; In re DNI Holdings Ltd., 77 U.S.P.Q.2d 1435 (T.T.A.B. 2005).
[ ] Build the § 2(f) record in the alternative even though it cannot cure genericness. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, Inc., 537 F.2d 4, 9 (2d Cir. 1976); Claiming Acquired Distinctiveness at the USPTO.
[ ] File documentary evidence under a notice of reliance in your testimony period, with URL and access date on every printout and a statement of relevance. 37 C.F.R. § 2.122(e), (g); declarations permitted under § 2.123(a)(1). See Understanding TTAB Discovery.
[ ] Propose accelerated case resolution where the record is documentary; it can halve a $300,000 proceeding. TBMP §§ 528.05(a)(2), 702.04.
[ ] Calendar the appellate route the day the decision issues: rehearing within one month, 37 C.F.R. § 2.144; Federal Circuit appeal or a § 1071(b) civil action within 63 days, § 2.145(d). See Taking an Ex Parte Appeal.
[ ] Price the § 1071(b) civil action honestly. It saved BOOKING.COM by permitting a new record, including the 74.8% survey — and it makes the applicant pay "all the expenses of the proceeding" win or lose, 15 U.S.C. § 1071(b)(3). Peter v. NantKwest, Inc., 589 U.S. 23 (2019), read the parallel patent provision not to reach the government's attorney's fees; the Office's other expenses still land on your client.

Phase 12 — The annual review

[ ] Re-score the triage table and treat any increase in category dominance as bad news.
[ ] Re-run the audit crawl; a year of new copy has accumulated and the linter misses clever violations.
[ ] Read the escalation log, not the alerts. Zero escalations in a year means the feed is broken, not that the world complied.
[ ] Count correction letters against a stated floor; a gap in the chronology is a hole in the record.
[ ] Sample two licensees in writing, file the samples, and re-check dictionaries, Wikipedia, trade glossaries, and the governing standards documents.
[ ] Decide the next survey wave — every three years for tier one, sooner if the own-copy or third-party-usage scores moved — and sign the custodian's log.
[ ] Escalate to counsel immediately on any of these: a dictionary entry without a trademark label, a standards body adopting the word, a competitor using it on packaging, a trade style guide adopting it, or a benchmark survey moving more than eight points against you.
- Authority. File the cadence with renewals and audits: Trademark Maintenance and Survival Toolkit. A buyer's counsel prices exactly this record: Trademark Due Diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions.

Common Mistakes

Policing the world before policing yourself. The first thing a recipient does is check your own site. Phase 4 comes before Phase 6, always.
Treating incontestability as protection. Cancellation runs at any time and § 1065(4) excludes generic names outright. A twenty-eight-year-old registration with three clean § 8 filings is as exposed as an application published last Tuesday.
Coining a generic noun and never using it. The footer notice does not cancel out the 340 sentences above it.
Drafting the identification for breadth. Broad IDs invite the Cordua argument that the term names a part of the genus.
Buying a survey for an ordinary word or compound. Schwan's and Frito-Lay discount those entirely.
Capturing evidence without URL, timestamp, and hash. It fails 37 C.F.R. § 2.122(e)(2) and it fails the custodian on cross.
Sending a legal threat to a journalist. Not actionable, and the letter becomes the story.
Starting the archive after the petition lands. Everything is dated after the dispute, and the hold stops you tidying anything.

Deadlines at a Glance

| Event | Deadline | Authority | |---|---|---| | Response to a genericness office action | 3 months from issuance; one 3-month extension for $125 (§ 66(a) applications keep 6 months) | 37 C.F.R. § 2.62(a); The 3-Month Office Action Deadline | | Appellant's brief on ex parte appeal | 60 days; examiner's brief 60 days later; reply 20 days | 37 C.F.R. § 2.142(b) | | Letter of protest | Before publication, or within 30 days after | 37 C.F.R. § 2.149(c) | | Notice of opposition | 30 days from publication, extendable | 37 C.F.R. §§ 2.101, 2.102 | | Petition to cancel on genericness | No deadline — available at any time | 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3) | | § 1068 disclaimer as alternative relief | Registration must be under 5 years old | Montecash, 95 U.S.P.Q.2d 1060 | | Answer in a TTAB proceeding | Per the institution order, typically 40 days | 37 C.F.R. § 2.114(a) | | Discovery conference | Within 30 days after the answer due date | 37 C.F.R. § 2.120(a)(2)(i) | | Expert disclosures at the Board | No later than 30 days before the close of discovery | 37 C.F.R. § 2.120(a)(2)(iii) | | Request for rehearing of a Board decision | 1 month from the decision | 37 C.F.R. § 2.144 | | Federal Circuit appeal or § 1071(b) civil action | 63 days from the final decision | 37 C.F.R. § 2.145(d) |

Confirm every fee at 37 C.F.R. § 2.6 before quoting a client, and docket each of these the day the triggering paper issues — see Docketing Deadlines.