Wind Down Your Trademark Practice with Alt Legal
Alt Legal Team | February 27, 2023
If the time has come to wrap up your practice, either because you’re retiring, making a career change, switching to a new law firm, or any other reason, no doubt one of your primary concerns is to ensure a seamless transition of your trademark matters to the next attorney to handle. With examination before the USPTO taking longer than ever, you will likely be left with no choice but to transition your matters while they are still pending examination or in the examination process. One of the most important steps to ensure a successful handover is to be certain that your files are organized and all matters are docketed and updated in your docketing system. Not only is this key to ensuring that your clients’ matters are all properly addressed, but it will ensure that you avoid ethical concerns as you transition away from your practice.
Make your portfolio more attractive (and valuable!) and ease the transition for yourself and your successor by migrating your matters to Alt Legal’s modern IP docketing system. With free migration, flexible, well-priced subscriptions, and a quick learning curve, switching to Alt Legal is a great move for you and your successors.
Free Migration
Whether you’re transitioning from another docketing system or using a spreadsheet, switching your portfolio to Alt Legal couldn’t be easier. Data migration is 100% free of charge any time during your subscription. All we need is your USPTO correspondent email address and we can automatically populate your US docket in moments. All matters will appear in your docket, all statuses will be updated according to TSDR records, and all TSDR documents will be uploaded to your matters. There is no manual data entry. This makes it incredibly easy to transition your matters to a new responsible attorney because once the proper paperwork has been filed with the USPTO to change the correspondent address, we will simply re-populate the docket based on the new correspondent address. Again, there’s no charge and we can have the new attorney up and running in no time.
Accurate, Updated Records
Alt Legal’s advanced automation gives you ease of mind, knowing that you are handing off matters that are organized, up-to-date, and properly docketed with the correct status, deadlines, and reminders. Alt Legal connects directly to the USPTO, automatically updating all US records and docketing deadlines and reminders. In Canada, our CIPO database connection retrieves all trademark data, deadlines, and status updates. In all other jurisdictions, our third-party data partnership allows us to automatically retrieve data from 180+ global IP offices and create renewal and use deadlines when foreign trademarks are registered and renewed. With Alt Legal, you can feel confident that your matters are all properly docketed and updated and you can be sure that nothing slips through the cracks as you transition your matters.
Fast Onboarding, Excellent Customer Support, Unlimited Training
Alt Legal is incredibly easy to use and requires minimal time to get up to speed. Alt Legal’s interface is very clean, modern, and intuitive and our customers report feeling comfortable with their new docketing system very quickly. They require very little training (the average training can be completed in as little as 15 minutes), although we are pleased to offer free, unlimited training any time during your subscription. We also offer outstanding customer support via phone, email and live chat to answer your questions. Because Alt Legal is so user-friendly, you’ll have no trouble managing your matters as you wind down your practice and your successor will easily pick up where you left off, ensuring that your clients are left in the best of hands.
Cost-Effective, All-Inclusive Pricing
As easy and as simple as our software itself, Alt Legal offers clear, easy-to-understand pricing. Our pricing is based on the number of matters you are docketing and includes all features. There are no hidden fees. This means you can pass along your docketing system to your successor with transparent pricing. There will be no surprises down the road!
Flexible Month-to-Month Subscriptions
Another benefit to switching to Alt Legal is that we offer flexible, month-to-month subscriptions. Most other trademark docketing systems on the market require that you sign long-term, expensive contracts. But with Alt Legal, neither you nor your successor will be locked into a lengthy, expensive contract. If your successor is unhappy with Alt Legal or simply prefers their existing docketing system, they can cancel at any time without incurring additional fees. However, we’ve found that most of our customers are so pleased with Alt Legal that they gladly renew their subscriptions.
Enable Alt Legal Trademark Protection to Bring in More Revenue
As you market your practice to a new responsible attorney, you can make your practice even more attractive by demonstrating additional revenue opportunities through offering clients subscription trademark monitoring plans. With a trademark monitoring plan, you will not only protect your clients’ marks against potential infringement, but you will find new revenue opportunities through enforcement actions including sending cease and desist and other demand letters, filing letters of protest, filing oppositions, preparing new trademark applications, etc.
Trademark monitoring has traditionally been cost prohibitive, but Alt Legal Trademark Protection, which is available as an add-on service to our docketing software, or a standalone service, offers monitoring over your entire USPTO docket for one low fee. We’re able to provide low-cost monitoring because we use automation and algorithms to help you identify the most egregious infringement at key stages in the trademark prosecution process.
Our customers are already reporting that Alt Legal Trademark Protection is helping them to identify infringement and bring in additional business to their firms. Also, customers are offering cost-effective subscription trademark monitoring plans to clients and actually monetizing their subscriptions to Alt Legal Trademark Protection. There are so many ways to benefit from trademark monitoring with Alt Legal Trademark Protection. By implementing this innovative new service, you’ll be handing over your trademark matters along with exciting new revenue opportunities, no doubt increasing the value of your portfolio.
Conclusion
Winding down your practice and entering a new chapter is an exciting time in your life! Don’t let the hassles of a cumbersome, outdated docketing system get in the way of a smooth transition. It’s easy and cost-effective to switch to Alt Legal, which offers a modern, user-friendly, and more accurate docketing system. If you have any questions about how Alt Legal can help with winding down your practice, our knowledgeable team is here to help. Reach out to us at sales@altlegal.com. Also, we would be pleased to offer you a free trial or demo of Alt Legal IP Docketing Software. To sign up, click here.