Understanding Your Trademark Status: The 15 TM5 Status Descriptors in Plain English

When you look up a U.S. trademark in TSDR (Trademark Status and Document Retrieval, the USPTO's status system at tsdr.uspto.gov), the status shows up twice. First comes a short label such as LIVE/APPLICATION/Awaiting Examination. Right below it is the USPTO's own "Status" line, a sentence such as "New application awaiting assignment to an examining attorney."

The short label is a TM5 Common Status Descriptor. There are 15, and this guide covers what each means, which ones call for action, and how they relate to the USPTO's numbered status codes.

The short version: the descriptor tells you where a mark stands. The Status line tells you why. To learn whether a deadline is running, read the Status line and the documents in TSDR, not just the descriptor.

What TM5 is

TM5 is a framework through which five trademark offices share information and run joint projects: the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the Ministry of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Korea (MOIP), and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). The USPTO calls them "the world's five largest trademark offices."

According to TM5, it grew out of a 2001 cooperation among the Japanese, European and U.S. offices; Korea's office joined in 2011 and China's in 2012. The USPTO's TM5 page, last updated in 2016, still uses those two offices' older names (KIPO and SAIC).

The descriptors came out of a USPTO-led TM5 project. The goal is a "common language": the same 15 terms, each with a small red or green icon, so owners filing in several countries can read status the same way everywhere. Each office also keeps its own status wording.

How to read the three parts

Fourteen of the 15 descriptors have three parts separated by slashes:

1. LIVE or DEAD. The DEAD descriptors cover applications that are "no longer active" and registrations "removed from the registry." A LIVE mark is still pending or still registered.
2. APPLICATION or REGISTRATION. Whether the mark is still an application or has been registered.
3. The stage, such as Awaiting Examination, Published for Opposition or Expired.

The 15th is simply OTHER, reserved "for the situation where the status is uncertain, unknown, or other than those previously identified."

So LIVE/APPLICATION/Awaiting Examination reads: the mark is alive, it is still an application, and it is waiting for an examiner (the USPTO examining attorney who reviews it).

All 15 descriptors at a glance

"What it means" paraphrases the official list the USPTO publishes. The deadlines are explained below the table.

The descriptor is a summary; the Status line has the details

The USPTO itself assigns the descriptor, and TSDR shows it just below "Mark Type" and above the USPTO's own "Status" field. With only 15 labels, one label can cover very different facts. Three examples from TSDR:

• Under Examination appears on an application whose Status line says "The applicant must respond to this Office action," and on one where an Office Action "suspending further action on the application has been sent."
• Refused/Dismissed or Invalidated appears on an application "Abandoned because the applicant failed to respond or filed a late response to an Office action," and on one "Abandoned because no Statement of Use or Extension Request timely filed after Notice of Allowance was issued." Both are missed deadlines, not refusals on the merits.
• Published for Opposition can stay in place after a Notice of Allowance, with a Status line that reads "Applicant must file a Statement of Use or Extension Request within six months of the NOA issuance date."

A LIVE label does not mean nothing is due, and a DEAD application does not always mean the examiner said no.

Where the numbered status codes fit

Numbers such as 630 or 700 are USPTO status codes. The USPTO's Trademark Case Files Dataset, for example, records a "Case file current status" code for applications and registrations. The descriptor is the broad bucket; the code, like the Status sentence, marks the specific step.

The USPTO published a list of these codes in its Official Gazette in a notice dated December 3, 1990. It described code 630 as "New Application-Record initialized not assigned to examiner" and code 700 as "Registered." That list is more than 35 years old and predates TM5, so treat a number as a pointer and rely on the Status sentence in TSDR for what the record says today.

What to do at each stage

Waiting for an examiner

As of October 1, 2026, the USPTO's processing wait times page reports an average of 4.3 months from filing to the first examining action (target: 5 months) and 10.4 months from filing to registration, a Notice of Allowance, or abandonment (target: 11 months). Those averages leave out suspended and opposed applications.

An Office Action is waiting for a reply

An Office Action is a letter from the examiner requiring more information or refusing registration. Under 37 CFR 2.62, unless the Office Action says otherwise, the response is due three months from its issue date. You can extend that once by three months, by asking before the deadline and paying $125 (filed electronically). An application filed through the Madrid Protocol under Section 66(a) gets six months, with no extension. See Refusals 101.

An application died because a deadline was missed

Under 37 CFR 2.66, you can petition to revive an application abandoned because the applicant did not respond on time to an Office Action or a Notice of Allowance, if the delay was unintentional. The petition must be filed "not later than: (1) Two months after the issue date of the notice of abandonment in full or in part; or (2) Two months after the date of actual knowledge of the abandonment and not later than six months after the date the trademark electronic records system indicates that the application is abandoned in full or in part, where the applicant declares under § 2.20 or 28 U.S.C. 1746 that it did not receive the notice of abandonment."

In plain terms: two months from the notice of abandonment, or, if you never received the notice, two months from when you learned of the abandonment and no later than six months after the USPTO's online records show it. The fee is $250 filed electronically. For a missed Office Action, the petition must include the response or a statement that you never received the Office Action; if you did receive it and it had a three-month deadline, add the $125 extension fee as well.

Express abandonment and surrender are final

37 CFR 2.68(a): "A request for abandonment or withdrawal may not subsequently be withdrawn." 37 CFR 2.172: "A surrender for cancellation may not subsequently be withdrawn." Be sure before you sign either. If you later want a registration, you would need to file a new application.

A Notice of Allowance issued

An intent-to-use application is one filed on a good-faith intention to use the mark rather than on current use. After its Notice of Allowance, the applicant has six months to file a Statement of Use (a verified statement that the mark is now in use in commerce) or to request a six-month extension, which costs $125 per class filed electronically (37 CFR 2.88, 2.89).

Opposition, cancellation or appeal at the TTAB

Anyone who believes they would be damaged by a registration can oppose it "within thirty days after the publication," and that time can be extended (15 U.S.C. §1063). After registration, a challenger can instead petition to cancel. Either way, the TTAB sets the deadline for your answer, and if none is filed in time the case "may be decided as in case of default" (37 CFR 2.106, 2.114). On appeal, "The brief of appellant shall be filed within sixty days from the date of appeal," or "the appeal may be dismissed" (37 CFR 2.142). These are legal proceedings; bring in a trademark attorney. (Because U.S. oppositions come before registration, descriptors #6 and #7 fit offices where the public can challenge a mark after it registers.)

Keeping a registration alive

For registrations not based on the Madrid Protocol, the USPTO's maintenance page requires a Section 8 declaration of use between the fifth and sixth years after registration, then Sections 8 and 9 (declaration plus renewal) between the ninth and 10th years and every 10 years after that. Each deadline has a six-month grace period with an additional fee. The USPTO sends courtesy email reminders, but you must file on time even if none arrives. See our Section 8 and 9 guide.

Miss the grace period, and "your registration will be canceled or deemed expired." A missed Section 8 declaration leads to cancellation: the registration "shall be canceled by the Director" unless the declaration is filed (15 U.S.C. §1058). In TSDR that shows as DEAD/REGISTRATION/Cancelled/Invalidated, with a Status line such as "Registration cancelled because registrant did not file an acceptable declaration under Section 8." A registration that was not renewed shows DEAD/REGISTRATION/Expired: "This registration was not renewed and therefore has expired." Either way, by the time a missed filing shows as DEAD, the grace period is over.

Around maintenance deadlines, owners may get mailings from private companies. Official USPTO email comes only from "@uspto.gov" (how to spot fake notices).

OTHER

Read the Status line. On USPTO records, OTHER appears, for example, on a "New, divided application undergoing initial processing." If it is still unclear, call the USPTO's Trademark Assistance Center at 1-800-786-9199 (option 1).

Keeping track

GleanMark watches your marks and alerts you to new filings and status changes. Alerts for status changes and Office Actions usually arrive by the next business day.

For what happens between filing and registration, see the examination process, step by step.