Building and Managing a Trademark Portfolio
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide is the working manual for taking a company from one trademark to a managed portfolio of twenty. It runs twelve numbered stages — brand architecture, tiering, clearance, the filing unit, the intent-to-use pipeline, batched prosecution, the unregistered second ring, the international trigger, ownership hygiene, maintenance, policing, and pruning — and gives each one the governing rule, a realistic cost and timeline, and the trap that costs the most money. It carries one company, a Portland cold-brew roaster called Brindle & Co., through every stage with real dates, real fee math under 37 C.F.R. § 2.6 as restructured in January 2025, and the actual decisions its counsel made. It supplies a four-tier filing standard, three decision trees, model language for launch intake and intercompany licensing, a full lifecycle deadline table, and an eight-year cost model. It deliberately stops short of budgets, audits, and board reporting, which live next door in the portfolio management toolkit, and it explains at each stage which companion document to open next.
IP and Technology > Trademarks | Guide | Published 15 January 2026 - Updated 17 February 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. From one mark to many — how to structure, prioritize, and protect a growing portfolio. This guide runs twelve numbered stages, from drawing the brand architecture before anyone drafts an application through pruning the marks that no longer earn their keep. Each stage gives you the move, the governing rule, the realistic cost and timeline, and the trap. One company — Brindle & Co., a Portland cold-brew roaster — is carried through all twelve with dates and dollar figures, from a single intent-to-use application to nine U.S. filings across four classes, five foreign registrations, and a Section 8 window. You get a four-tier filing standard, three decision trees, model language for launch intake and intercompany licensing, a complete lifecycle deadline table, and an eight-year cost model built on current USPTO fees.
Keywords: trademark portfolio · brand architecture · portfolio tiering · filing standard · intent-to-use pipeline · statement of use · identification of goods · standard character drawing · madrid protocol · section 8 declaration · section 15 incontestability · assignment recordation · related company use · consent agreement · trademark watch service · portfolio pruning · uspto fees · docketing
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