A US trademark registration lasts ten years and can be renewed indefinitely. There is no maximum term and no point at which a mark ages out — registrations from the 1950s are still live and still renewing.
What ends a registration is not time. It is a missed filing.
The schedule
- Years 5–6. A Section 8 declaration of continued use. Commonly filed with a Section 15.
- Years 9–10. A combined Section 8 and Section 9.
- Every ten years after. The same combined filing, before each anniversary.
Each has a six-month grace period with an extra fee per class. Madrid registrations follow the same rhythm under Section 71.
The six-year filing is the one that gets missed
Ten-year renewal is a familiar idea and tends to get docketed. The six-year Section 8 is the orphan: it arrives once, it is not called a renewal, and a system that models maintenance as “every ten years” will not generate it at all.
It is also the deadline where the consequence is most disproportionate. Six years in, a brand is established, the mark is in real use, and the registration is worth defending — and it cancels for want of a declaration and a specimen.
What cancellation costs
Not the filing fee of a new application. The priority date. A registration carries the date it was first applied for, and that date decides who prevails against anyone who filed in the intervening years. Refiling resets it to today and surrenders every year of seniority the mark had accumulated.
Anyone who filed a similar mark in those years — including a competitor who checked the register, saw the registration had lapsed, and moved — is now ahead.
Deleting goods that are no longer in use
Maintenance filings declare use on the goods and services listed. Where some have been dropped, they must be deleted rather than declared. An over-broad declaration is a defect in a verified filing, and it is the first thing examined when a registration is challenged years later.