How it works
No legal jargon. No complexity. Here's exactly what happens when you use TMGuard to protect your brand.
TMGuard monitors three registers: the UK IPO Trade Marks Journal (published weekly), the EUIPO register (updated daily), and the USPTO register (updated daily). Between them, they cover 21.26M UK, EU and US trade marks. TMGuard reads all three automatically.
Enter your brand name and registration number. TMGuard auto-detects your Nice classes (the categories your trade mark covers) and starts watching immediately.
TMGuard monitors every new filing across the UK IPO journal, EUIPO register and USPTO register.Our matching engine checks each one against your brand with 7 text layers, the best one counting: exact, normalised, phonetic, substring, component, Levenshtein, and token overlap.
If we find a potential conflict, you receive an email with the details: what was filed, who filed it, how similar it is to your mark, and what your options are. No noise, only genuine threats.
When TMGuard detects a filing that could conflict with your trade mark, we don't just tell you it exists. We give you everything you need to decide what to do.
Your alert email includes:
Every conflict gets a score from 0 to 100. This is not a legal opinion, it's an algorithmic estimate of how close the match is to your trade mark.
The score is calculated from five factors: text similarity (40%), Nice class overlap (25%), goods/services similarity (20%), applicant history (10%), and mark type (5%).
You always have four choices. TMGuard helps you understand each one, but the decision is always yours.
File a formal opposition with the IPO. You have 2 months from publication. Cost: £125 or £250 IPO fee, depending on the grounds. Costs between the parties are awarded on the IPO's published scale as a contribution, not full recovery; the median award in 2025 was £900 across 622 decisions. TMGuard can pre-fill the draft forms; whether to file is a question for a qualified trade mark attorney.
A Notice of Threatened Opposition (TM7A), filed within the two months, is free and extends the window to three months from publication, but only for the person who files it and the companies in its group. It gives you time to seek advice. TMGuard tracks this deadline for you.
Not sure what to do? For advice on your own position, use a qualified trade mark attorney. TMGuard is not a law firm and cannot advise you itself.
Sometimes a filing isn't a real threat. If you choose not to act, the mark proceeds to registration. After registration the route is invalidation, a full tribunal action against a registered mark that may already be in use.
Start with a free trade mark check, or sign up to monitor your brand automatically.