5 Ways to Manage Your Trademark Portfolio More Efficiently - Anaqua IP Management Software and Services

Learn how trademark portfolio management software can help your company achieve optimal brand protection with specific insights from trademark leaders.  

A robust trademark portfolio management software should give you the ability to improve collaboration with business teams so you can secure branding more quickly for product launches. It should also deliver better global insights into your company's trademark portfolio(s) from a variety of perspectives with visibility into counterfeiting threats and actions, as well as trademark expenses and annual projections. And it should help your team reduce manual work. 

Discover 5 ways that well-designed trademark portfolio management software can help make your workdays easier and even more productive:

1. Collaborate with stakeholders effectively for stronger global brand protection→

2. Leverage automation and integrated systems to boost productivity and focus→

3. Track your anti-counterfeit efforts to keep your stakeholders informed→

4. Streamline renewal payments and processes to lower risk→

5. Manage your brands effectively with connected product and brand portfolio data→

1. Collaborate with Stakeholders Effectively for Stronger Global Brand Protection   

Can you collaborate effectively with different business, R&D, and marketing teams to secure your brands globally? How do you keep everyone informed on search, clearance, launches of new brands, or renewal decisions of existing marks? Maintaining a consistent and accurate trademark portfolio across different entities around the globe with many internal and external business partners can be difficult.  

 "Trademark teams need software that helps them handle all their docketing information, collaborate and track timeframes with their marketing teams, split out information for different users, see how a licensee is using a brand, and streamline renewals deadlines." 

Barb Barron Kelly
Senior Vice President of Customer Success
Corsearch®

Lean on trademark management software to help you:  

• Easily communicate with different teams and share product/brand reports reflecting costs, deadlines, and other custom parameters  
• Empower your marketing and product teams to submit search requests to your IP team through a simple-to-use portal  
• Collaborate securely with outside counsel from a centralized platform to coordinate accurate foreign filing 
• Enable your marketing, R&D, product, business, and legal teams to view the trademark portfolio from their perspective

Figure 1: For example, using AQX® Trademark Management software, you can communicate with different teams and share product/brand reports reflecting costs, deadlines, and other custom parameters

2. Leverage Automation and Integrated Systems to Boost Productivity and Focus 

Are manual docketing, search and clearance, and repetitive tasks a burden for your team? Are you using spreadsheets or multiple tools to manage projects, prioritize tasks, and keep track of crucial deadlines? 

If you adopt trademark portfolio management software that has docketing automation capabilities and integrated systems which pull together docketing information, documents, emails, outside counsel updates, financials, and more, you can:   

• Reduce your team's time in repetitive tasks and manual data entry, and shift focus to high value activities such as strategy and enforcement  
• Use automated workflows to keep informed of upcoming deadlines, reminders, and alerts
• Improve the data quality of bibliographic data with automated syncing and verification using PTO data and global jurisdictions   
• Save time by collaborating on documents that will automatically sync with your Document Management System 
• Keep track of trademark search activities in one place

"We use AQX to support all our trademark clearance work and reporting. It took us from the dark ages of working with email and spreadsheets to a fully automated request form our business people have to fill out, which is then routed to us with all the information we need. This information is tricky to get when people are just sending an email, saying: "Hey, can you look at these names for us?" Yes, we can, but can you tell us a little more. So that's all automated now, plus we've got the system looking up and matching against all the records that we've done previously."

Will Federspiel
Director & Senior Counsel - IP
Reebok

3. Track Your Anti-Counterfeit Efforts to Keep Your Stakeholders Informed   

Is monitoring and reporting counterfeit goods a constant challenge for you? You are not alone. While EU authorities detained 31% more fake goods in 2021 than the previous year, the counterfeiting claims before US courts have tripled over the past five years.¹ 

Trademark portfolio management software can help you manage your anti-counterfeiting efforts more effectively with in-depth reports and dashboards that support you to: 

• Stay updated with a global view of products, licenses, and outside activities, such as infringement or potential counterfeiting  
• Track counterfeits and cross-reference them with your litigation matters using conflicts and litigation support  
• Report potential trademark infringements and initiate enforcement actions while on the go

Will Federspiel, shares how AQX helps Reebok's anti-counterfeit efforts: "I really like the deep dive the AQX reporting gives me. It helps me inform my business partners. 'Hey, we've got a real problem. This particular model is everywhere in the counterfeiting space.' I can show them just how many knock-off products are out there, and their jaws drop."  

4. Streamline Renewal Payments and Processes to Lower Risk  

Is the process of managing trademark renewals globally overwhelming your team? How do you stay on top of renewal deadlines, fees, and payment methods across countries? With the right trademark portfolio management platform, you should be able to:  

• Gain complete visibility of the payment workflow from the due date to the receipt  
• Review upcoming renewals by viewing data such as the number of renewals due, expected cost, and jurisdiction  
• Simplify decision-making with configurable automated workflows that route to the correct team members  
• Set up budgets by brand, market, and product, and track your spending vs. budget in easy-to-use dashboards 

Figure 3: For example, in AQX Trademark Management, data such as related records, due dates, and PTO documents are pulled together in one view for you to make easier renewal decisions

5. Manage Your Brands Effectively with Connected Product and Brand Portfolio Data

 Can you view, report, and analyze your trademark portfolio from different perspectives, such as product, brand, or design? Is your decision-making process efficient and standardized?  

 You'll want software that empowers you to:  

• Get a holistic view of your marks and brands crosslinked with your product records and patent data 
• Easily understand how your brands are performing using interactive dashboards
• Track outside counsel performance and expenses to optimize workload 
• Check current spending by technology, product line, business unit, or other factors and track them against your IP budget 

Figure 4: For example, with AQX Trademark Management, you can get a holistic view of your marks and brands crosslinked with your product records and patent data

Key Takeaways: Protecting Your Brands with AQX Trademark Management  

Moving to a robust trademark portfolio management platform can be transformative for your team and for your company's brand monetization and protection in many ways. Anaqua's AQX Trademark Management software takes a holistic approach to the trademark lifecycle, giving you visibility, control, and focus on each stage. AQX's automation functionality, powerful portfolio management, and spend management capabilities let your IP leaders maximize your IP budget. 

"Trademark teams continuously face difficulty reviewing and analyzing their trademark portfolio from different angles. AQX Trademark Management, with its interactive HyperView™ dashboards, helps teams track KPIs, IP budgets, and spending. They can also view and report on the hierarchy of brands, trademarks, and country applications. The ability to view these reports together is like opening new doors to gain different perspectives about the same portfolio." 

Olivier Huc
Senior Director and Head of European Sales
Anaqua

More About AQX®

AQX has been recognized as a Market Leader and Highly Innovative by Hyperion Global Partners in the Hyperion MarketView™ Report on IP Management Systems for Corporations. Contact us today to request a demo from an IP specialist.

Watch a Brief Trademark Management Video to Learn More 

Additional Resources:   

• Reebok Client Spotlight   
• AQX Trademark Management  
• Trademark Renewals

Sources:  

1. Economic Uncertainty, Cautious Filings, Increased Fees: Trademark Trends to Look Out for in 2023, World Trademark Review, Dec 2022  
2. World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022  
3. World Trademark Review Special Report 2023: Anti-Counterfeiting Strategy Playbook