Published for opposition: the 30 days

If a trademark application is “published for opposition”, the office has examined it, decided it may register, and told the world so. From the day it is published, anyone who believes the registration would damage them has a fixed amount of time to object or to ask for more time. In the United States that is 30 days. Nobody writes to tell you the clock has started.

What publication for opposition means

A US application that survives examination is published in the Trademark Official Gazette, which the USPTO describes as a weekly electronic publication and issues each Tuesday. Publication is not registration. It is the office saying: we are satisfied; speak now.

That is the only notice there is. The Gazette is a list, it is published once a week, and nothing in the process sends a copy to the owners of marks that already exist.

How long do I have? 30 days from publication

The USPTO puts it plainly on its own trademark process page: after the trademark is published, “any party who believes it may be damaged by the registration of your trademark has 30 days from the publication date to file either an opposition to registration or a request to extend the time to oppose”.

Two things follow from that sentence, and they are the two things most owners do not know.

1. The 30 days run from publication, not from the day you heard about the filing. If you find out because a listing came down or a letter arrived, weeks of it are usually gone.
2. Objecting is not the only move inside the window. A request to extend the time to oppose is also filed in those 30 days, and it buys time to think.

What does it cost to extend the 30 days?

From the USPTO fee schedule (effective 19 January 2025, last revised 14 August 2026), filed electronically:

Note the first row. The first extension costs nothing and does not have to be justified — but it has to be filed inside the original 30 days. That is the single most expensive date to miss in the whole process, because it is the one that is free.

How much extra time can be had in total

The rule is 37 CFR § 2.102(c), and it has a hard ceiling:

A 60-day extension is not available as a first request. And whatever the combination, the regulation is explicit: "The time for filing an opposition shall not be extended beyond 180 days from the date of publication."

So the outer limit is six months from the Tuesday it was published — and the only part of it that is free, and the only part nobody can refuse you, is the first thirty days.

How do I find a trademark's publication date?

For a specific application, the publication date is in the record itself:

1. Open TSDR and enter the serial number.
2. Go to Documents or Prosecution History.
3. Look for the entry “Published for Opposition”. Its date is the date the 30 days run from.

The USPTO's own guide to searching the Gazette walks through the same thing. What TSDR cannot do is tell you that a new application resembling your mark has been published at all — you have to already know the serial number.

The European Union works differently

At the EUIPO, an application is published in the EU Trade Marks Bulletin and a notice of opposition must be filed no later than three months after publication: "Within a period of three months following the publication of an EU trade mark application, notice of opposition to registration of the trade mark may be given" (Article 46(1) EUTMR). The fee is €320 and the opposition is not treated as entered until it is paid (Article 46(3)–(4)).

Unlike the US window, the three months cannot be extended — and the EUIPO is unusually firm about it. The period is excluded both from continuation of proceedings and from restitutio in integrum, expressly in the interests of legal certainty. There is no equivalent of the free US extension, and no late remedy at all.

Our EU ingest is written and waiting on office access, so GuardMyMark does not watch the EU register yet. The rule is here because the difference matters: three months sounds generous until you learn there is no extension at the end of it.

What this page is not

This is an explanation of dates and fees. It is not legal advice, we are not a law firm, and nothing above says whether any particular filing is worth objecting to — that question needs a trademark attorney looking at both marks, both specifications and your actual use. See our disclaimer.

What we can do is tell you, every week, which newly published filings resemble a mark you own and what day each one's window closes. The free clash check does it once, for one mark, against the last 90 days, without an account.