Setting up monitoring

There are several routes into monitoring, depending on what you already have.

From scratch

Go to Monitoring and choose Create monitoring. The dialog asks for the same three things as a search:

• Trademark name — the mark you want protected.
• Countries — where you care about new filings.
• NICE classes — the goods and services that matter.

Above the form, a capacity strip shows how many territories you have available and how many you have selected.

Region bundles

Above the country picker sits a region bundle selector. A bundle is a named group of countries that counts as one territory.

The European Union is a bundle: watching all 27 member states through the EU bundle costs one slot. Picking the same 27 countries individually would cost 27.

Countries already covered by a selected bundle are greyed out in the country list, with a note saying how many are covered.

From search results

If you have already found your own mark in a search, this is faster and more accurate.

Select the marks in the result list and choose Monitor selected. Each mark becomes its own monitoring job, with regions defaulting to that mark’s own territories — adjust them per mark before confirming.

Two things to expect:

• Figurative-only marks (an image with no text) cannot be monitored and are refused with an explanation.
• Where the selected regions form a bundle, the dialog says so and charges it as one territory.

Putting a whole portfolio under watch at once

If you already own a set of trademarks, you do not have to create the jobs one by one. Go through Advanced search.

By application or registration number

1. Open Advanced search and find the Numbers section.
2. Paste your numbers into Application numbers or Registration numbers. The field takes a whole list at once: paste a column straight out of a spreadsheet and it splits on newlines, tabs, commas and semicolons into one chip per number. Duplicates are dropped automatically, and Backspace removes the last chip.
3. Search. A numbers-only query is a lookup — you do not have to supply classes or countries.
4. In the results, use Select all on page (the selection carries over as you page through), then Monitor selected.
5. Each mark becomes its own monitoring job, with regions defaulting to that mark’s own territories. Review them and confirm.

By owner

Put your company’s name in Applicant / Owner names and leave everything else empty. That returns your whole portfolio, and the same Select all on page → Monitor selected works on it.

This is also how you cover a competitor’s existing marks — with the caveat below.

Bulk imports are all or nothing

A bulk import is checked against your slot pool as a whole. If the pool cannot take every job in the batch, nothing is created and you get the no-slots dialog with the ways to resolve it — a slot pack, an upgrade, or funding the batch with credits. You never end up with half an import.

Count before you start: the total is one slot per region per mark, so 12 marks each watched in 3 countries is 36 slots. Selecting a region bundle such as the EU counts as one.

Watching an owner

To keep an eye on a competitor rather than a name, run an owner lookup in Advanced search — an owner name with no mark text — then choose Watch this owner from the results toolbar.

You will be alerted whenever that company files or registers anything new in the regions you select. This is how you track a competitor’s expansion into new markets or new product lines.

Owner watch versus monitoring their marks. The two are different jobs and answer different questions:

• Watch this owner — one job, watching for anything new that owner files. It costs one slot per region, whatever the size of their portfolio.
• Monitor selected on their existing marks — one job per mark, watching for filings similar to those marks, by anyone.

For your own portfolio you usually want the second. For a competitor, the first.

Choosing scope sensibly

• Classes: match the classes of your own registration, plus the neighbouring ones a competitor might use to reach your customers.
• Countries: your home market and the markets you actually trade in. Adding countries you have no rights in produces alerts you cannot act on.
• One job per mark: keep separate marks in separate jobs, so alerts are unambiguous.

What it costs

Each region watched consumes one monitoring slot from your plan’s pool, or can be funded with one credit for 12 months. See Monitoring slots and credit funding.

Changing a job later

Open the job and edit it. Adding countries or regions to a live job charges the difference immediately — extra slots from your pool, or one credit per extra region on a credit-funded job. If neither is available, nothing changes and you are told why.