Your Mid-Year Trademark Audit: Six Questions to Answer Before Q3
A practical checklist for PE-backed and growth-stage companies preparing for the second half of 2026.
Introduction
Companies that scale cleanly through a financing or an acquisition do their trademark portfolio work in the months before the deal — not during. The cost of finding gaps in diligence is several multiples of the cost of finding them now.
Six months into 2026, the question is direct: is the portfolio in better shape than it was in January? For most growing companies, the honest answer is no. Not because the team isn’t working, but because portfolios drift. New launches, new markets, new partnerships, new team members. The brand activity expands. The legal infrastructure usually lags.
These are the six questions worth answering before Q3 planning starts. Any “no” is a project, not a crisis. Most are fixable.
- Are the marks you’re actively using currently registered?
This is the question most companies fail. Between January and June, growing companies launch new products, change taglines, refresh logos, spin up service lines, and announce features. Most of those launches happen without anyone confirming that the brand assets behind them are protected.
Make a list of every name, logo, tagline, and feature brand in active use. Cross-reference it with the registered portfolio. The gap is your filing list.
- What renewals come due in the next 18 months?
Section 8 declarations of use are due between the fifth and sixth year after registration. Section 9 renewals are due every ten years. The registered marks must be in use in commerce before these can be filed. Missing either deadline puts the registration at risk — and the grace periods that exist come with their own costs.
If the portfolio is on a docketing system, this is a five-minute review. If it isn’t, this is the sign to put one in place. International registrations follow different schedules and stricter rules. Don’t assume the U.S. calendar covers everywhere.
- Is the portfolio being actively monitored?
The US Patent and Trademark Office does not provide notice when someone else files a confusingly similar mark, opens an infringing website, or lists a knockoff on a marketplace.
Two questions need answers: who in the organization is responsible for monitoring, and what happens when something is flagged. A monitoring service that no one reviews is a line item, not a control.
Effective monitoring covers three lanes — new filings or publications at the USPTO and key foreign offices, domain and website activity in the brand’s category, and marketplace listings on the platforms where the category lives. Each lane has its own tools and its own response playbook. Treat monitoring outputs like any other operational alert: triaged, owned, and resolved on a clock.
- Does coverage match where the business actually operates?
Filings made when a company was selling one product to one market do not automatically expand with the company. Common patterns to watch:
- Filed for software. Now offering services.
- Filed in the U.S. Now generating meaningful revenue in Canada, the U.K., or the E.U.
- Filed in classes that fit the launch product but not the line that came after it.
Where coverage doesn’t match operations, there is either a filing decision to make or a deliberate risk to document. “We’ll figure it out later” is not a third option.
- Are the trademark agreements current?
Licenses, coexistence agreements, assignments, and consent agreements all need active management. The most common failures are silent ones:
- A license that doesn’t actually contain a quality control provision — which can put the registration itself at risk.
- A coexistence agreement that defined a product line that no longer exists.
- An assignment that does not contain the corresponding goodwill is invalid in the US.
- A license that doesn’t consider use on evolving technologies could risk brand reputation.
If a company can’t put its hands on the current versions of these agreements in 30 minutes, that’s the project.
- Is the portfolio ready for diligence right now?
Companies that look ready for diligence aren’t doing anything special at the moment of the request. They have been ready continuously.
The basics: every mark in use is registered or has a plausible path to registration. Every registration is owned by the company entity that operates the business — not an early founder, not a defunct entity, not a holding company without the necessary license. Chain of title is clean. No adverse claims. No unresolved oppositions.
The three patterns that surface most often in due diligence and cost the most to fix: asset purchase agreements that do not adequately assign trademark rights, holes in the chain in of title, and international gaps in markets where the company is already generating revenue. Each of these is fixable in advance for a fraction of what it costs at the deal table.
If any of those answers aren’t clear, do the work now. Cleanup in diligence is the most expensive form of trademark work.
If the answer to any of these is “no”
The fix is a 30 to 90-day project, depending on portfolio size. Questions 1, 2, 3, and 6 carry the highest cost of inaction. Questions 4 can be quarterly work. Question 5 is a contract review that can be batched.
The audit isn’t an annual event. Mid-year and year-end is the cadence that catches most of what matters — two snapshots, six months apart. Build it into an existing rhythm. The strongest version pairs the IP review with the same finance team meeting that handles year-end accruals or quarterly board prep. The portfolio gets the same attention any other corporate asset would, because that’s what it is.
Half the year is gone. The brands that come out of December clean are the ones that did the audit when they could control the timing — not when their term sheet did. A 90-minute portfolio review now prevents most of the problems that surface at year end and in deal rooms.
Markery Law is a DC-area trademark boutique that counsels mid-market companies the way an in-house attorney would — from first filing to global portfolio management. Reach out to a Markery Law attorney to schedule a mid-year portfolio review.