Meet Trademarkabilities: The Best Way To Build Up Your Trademark Law Skillset

Trademark law has been increasing in popularity and importance in recent years, particularly as businesses were forced to shift and rebrand in the last year. Unfortunately, though, there have historically been very few offerings in the way of comprehensive training for attorneys who are just starting out with trademarks.

We recently sat down with Stacey Kalamaras, a seasoned trademark attorney and the founder of Trademarkabilities, an online trademark academy designed to fill that gap and give U.S. attorneys the comprehensive instruction they need to successfully handle trademark matters. Kalamaras shared her thoughts on why trademarks are so important, how attorneys can gain the confidence to handle trademark work, and more.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how it led up to you founding Trademarkabilities.

My background is unique. I’m a second-career attorney – I spent my first career in marketing and advertising, building brands for multinational corporations, before I gave that up to go back to law school full time. I had really fallen in love with the area of brand management and was working with in-house counsel who do what I do now, and that’s where I learned what intellectual property law was. The prospect of making a living by legally protecting brands was fascinating to me. I decided to take all the institutional and industry knowledge I had and use it to become a brand protection lawyer.

Why did you create Trademarkabilities?

When I started my career in Biglaw, I had access to some wonderful practitioners who gave me a lot of formal training. Adding that to my understanding of the business of brands from my previous career put me in a great position. I started my own firm in 2009, then went in-house where I met a lot of solo and small firm practitioners who were struggling without the type of training and mentoring resources I had in Biglaw.

I went back to Biglaw in 2014 and realized that the training I had received doesn’t exist as much anymore. While I think every firm has some sort of a training program, it’s now much less formalized than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Under client pressures to control rates, junior associates were also not getting the same early experience of working on interesting trademark portfolios, which is where you really learn by doing.

That led me to the idea for a more practical education format. I just needed to figure out the technology to bring it to the market, which I ultimately did in 2020 in the form of Trademarkabilities.

How is Trademarkabilities different from other educational programs out there?

My approach is a very practical one, and it’s quite different from that of national CLE providers, for example. The practical approach really resonates with people, because it’s not just a lecture on what a case means or the latest update to some statute. It’s actionable information about what an IP attorney can do with a piece of information and how it impacts their practice.

The real idea of Trademarkabilities is to give anyone who has interest in trademark law – whether they’re brand new attorneys or someone who’s more experienced and who wants to add trademark prosecution to their practice – the opportunity to learn the practical side of practicing before the USPTO. We start with the rules, but we go beyond that with practical strategies and tips to help the practitioner understand the concepts more fully. We also provide screen shots of USPTO forms and client communication templates.

Some of our attorneys have described the program as “a trademark practice in a box.” I want to make it as easy as possible for the attorney to set up a trademark practice if they’re new to practicing trademark law. To date, I’ve educated over 3,000 attorneys on various trademark and IP issues.

Who can benefit from Trademarkabilities?

Anyone who is dedicated to trademark law. We’ve had everyone from solo and small firm attorneys to in-house attorneys to attorneys at IP boutiques or larger firms. In the firm setting, junior attorneys want to do well and advance their careers. No matter how great their mentors are, though, no partner is going to have time to devote the hours and the level of detail that we give in the course.

We go into great depth and cover the entire trademark prosecution process from beginning to end. It’s meant to be comprehensive and something attorneys can grow with, regardless of their experience level when they start.

Why is trademark education so important?

Trademarks are an incredibly important business asset. If you look at the filings at the USPTO, trademarks have been growing in popularity over the last five years, largely because trademarks are becoming more accessible to businesses of all sizes. There was also a huge increase in trademark filings during the pandemic, because people were forced to pivot and form new businesses. All this means that more and more clients are starting to ask their attorneys about trademark issues.

Any attorney barred in any state can practice trademark law in the U.S., but most lack the training to do it, so they end up referring this business elsewhere. And the fact that the U.S., unlike most other countries, doesn’t have a competency test (like the patent bar, for instance) for trademark practitioners makes it more difficult for practitioners to learn the area well. Part of the reason for setting up Trademarkabilities was to make sure that people really understand how nuanced this area is and to ensure they can represent their clients confidently.

How does the course work?

Our signature course is a 10.5-hour course. We also have an introductory course if people just want to dip their toe in. Trademarkabilities is a video-on-demand course, which means you can take as much time as necessary to complete the course on your schedule. The videos are viewed on our learning platform, which can be accessed as often as you want, via your computer or mobile devices. You also get a complete workbook of the slides that go with the course, as well as templates that can be downloaded and customized to suit your firm’s needs.

We also offer additional resources for anyone who signs on to the signature course, including monthly, live Q&A sessions that I run and a closed Facebook group where people enrolled in the course can post questions and get feedback. The signature course is CLE-certified in the state of Illinois, which says something about the level of the substance of the course.

What should people know about pricing?

The course is $2495, which I think is an exceptional value for all of the tools and resources that you’re given. There’s no other course out there of this length that goes anywhere near as in-depth as our course. Our pricing is comparable to what you’d pay for one- or two-day sessions from other providers that only give you an overview of the topic.

We offer discount pricing for additional enrollees from the same firm. I welcome any firm leaders who are interested in outsourcing their trademark training to please contact me. We do customized training for five or more people at the same firm and would be happy to speak with anyone about how we could be a resource to train junior trademark attorneys at their firm.

What can attorneys expect to get out of Trademarkabilities?

We want to help attorneys who are new to trademark law gain confidence in representing their clients and not have to turn this work away. We understand that, particularly when you’re on your own without that safety net of more experienced practitioners around you, it can be scary to learn a new area of law. At Trademarkabilities, we can be that safety net for you.

We help to build your skillset and, more importantly, confidence, so that you don’t ever have to turn away business that you want to take on. There’s no reason you can’t do trademark work, but you do need to learn the fundamentals first. We provide the fundamentals and much more.

Interested in learning more? Find all the comprehensive instruction you’ll need to optimize and grow your career in trademark law here!