Understanding the trends of the trademark industry is vital for developing strategies but also for maintaining a competitive edge. We released our most recent Trademark Intelligence Report in April to facilitate this understanding. This detailed report presents essential insights useful for attorneys, firms, and companies engaged in trademark prosecution. Besides offering comprehensive analyses and statistics, the report also evaluates and ranks of attorneys, law firms, and companies based on their activity and performance, thus providing an incisive view of industry leaders in the United States.

In our previous articles, we have presented several key insights from this report such as 'Top Foreign Countries Driving U.S. Trademark Filings' and 'Top Attorney Lateral Moves', revealing the extent of international influence on the U.S. trademark industry and notable shifts respectively. This week, we're taking a closer look at the trademark filing trends between 2022 and 2023, focusing specifically on law firms. We have identified growing and declining firms and extracted the driving forces behind these trends.

Our Trademark Intelligence Report includes a detailed analysis of trademark filing trends over the past 5 years. From the data, we see interesting fluctuations emerge. In 2019, there were 530,479 trademark applications filed. This count experienced a significant surge in 2020, rising by approximately 30.54% to 692,461 filings. This is predominantly attributed to an influx of trademark filings originating from China, as highlighted in Patexia 176. However, the trend slightly reversed in 2021, with filings decreasing to 681,633. This translates to a moderate drop of about 1.56% compared to 2020. Moving into 2022, there was a further decrease in filings, with the count declining markedly to 546,964, a reduction of around 19.7% from 2021. Interestingly, this decline runs parallel to the downtick in trademark filings of Chinese origin, which, for the first time in a decade, experienced a downturn. The downward trend mildly persisted into 2023, featuring a minor decrease to 543,166 filings for the year.

In our Trademark Intelligence 2024 report, we conducted a comprehensive review of a total of 24,921 law firms that filed trademark applications on behalf of 213,639 U.S. and foreign trademark applicants. These filings were processed through an extensive network of 32,484 attorneys. To identify the law firms that exhibited the largest growth or decline, we narrowed our focus down to the top 2,000 most active law firms in 2023 and performed a comparative analysis with the data for 2022. Since there are law firms with a relatively small number of trademarks where even a slight shift in their numbers can dramatically change their growth or decline percentages, our comparison was done using absolute numbers, which provide a more precise representation. The bar chart that follows depicts the top five law firms that experienced the largest growth in the number of filed trademark applications in 2023:

Kunzler Bean & Adamson has demonstrated the largest growth in its operations throughout 2023. A notable measure of this is the significant rise in its number of filed trademark applications, which have seen an increase of 6,334 compared to the previous year. Upon examining their client base using our Trademark Analyzer, we observe that the firm has a strong presence in both national and international markets. At the same time, a substantial proportion of the trademark applications filed in 2023 - a significant 90.45% - originate from various Chinese companies. This illustrates the firm's strategic engagement with the Chinese market.
Olive Law Group, PLLC led by Bentley J. Olive has actively expanded its services to include a broader international client base. The firm experienced significant growth in 2023, with 2,959 more trademark applications filed compared to the previous year. This increase was predominantly driven by Chinese companies, which accounted for 2,833 of the additional applications. This trend highlights the firm's expanding influence and its targeted focus on the Chinese market.
Pasadena Legal Group also saw an increase in trademark applications filed in 2023, with 2,959 more than the previous year. This growth is attributed to a strategic expansion in their client base, particularly among international companies, with a notable surge in applications from Chinese businesses. This trend aligns with broader industry observations, where Chinese businesses have been actively increasing their trademark filings to protect their intellectual property in global markets.
LZ Legal Services, LLC, a subsidiary of LegalZoom, leverages the brand's wide-reaching presence and established reputation in delivering accessible legal services. The company saw a significant surge in trademark applications in 2023, filing 2,517 more than in 2022. Moreover, it has actively broadened its clientele, with a particular emphasis on domestic clients. This expansion initiative entails a strategic focus on small businesses and startups, which have notably contributed to the uptick in trademark applications.
Mot Law Group, PLLC, specializing in trademark registration, demonstrated significant growth in 2023, with an increase of 2,469 more applications filed compared to the previous year, 2022. This growth is largely attributed to an uptick in engagements from Chinese entities, signaling the company's growing influence and reach in international markets, particularly in China.

As we shine a light on the growth in the legal industry, it's equally essential to address areas where some law firms didn't meet their expectations. The following chart provides the top five law firms that witnessed a downward trend last year. Observing a decline is not necessarily indicative of an overall failure or negative performance. On the contrary, such moments can often signal the onset of strategic reassessments and innovations, marking a shift in focus or approach which may lead to stronger success in the long term.

Among the law firms experiencing a downturn, the presence of Koh Law Firm, LLC is particularly noticeable. Between January 2019 and December 2022, Francis H. Koh became the attorney of record on over 25,000 trademark applications filed with the USPTO. While managing such a high volume of applications might have led to a decrease in new applications in 2023, a dispute with Amazon could have also played a significant role. Koh Law Firm, LLC filed a lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the company of falsely placing Koh on their 'blacklist' of trademark attorneys and spreading misleading statements regarding Koh's activities.

It is interesting to observe that the majority of law firms experiencing both growth and decline in 2023 have a significant portion of their clientele originating from Chinese companies. During this period, there was a noticeable drop in trademark applications from Chinese entities, affecting some law firms adversely while others continued to grow. The relationship between the law firms and their Chinese clients highlights a mutually beneficial scenario. Chinese companies are leveraging the firms' established reputations and expertise in trademark law, which, in turn, contributes to the firms' business expansion, strengthens their international portfolios, and solidifies their positions as key players in the global legal arena. On the other hand, a reliance solely on foreign clients can lead to fluctuations, particularly when there are major changes in foreign trademark applications. This dependency underscores the importance of diversifying client bases to mitigate such risks.

Stay tuned, as in the following weeks, we will continue to cover more highlights from our Trademark Intelligence Report. We will feature some of the very best trademark law firms and attorneys, recognizing them for their distinguished activity and performance.

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