There are many things that serious trademark owners do throughout the lifecycle of a trademark to mitigate risk, protect the valuable goodwill in their underlying brand, and preserve their valuable investment in this important intellectual property asset. Here is a fairly extensive, but certainly not exhaustive, and often forgotten, list of those things:

1. Clear new marks before using them even if "only" for brand extensions;

2. Understand the pros and cons of different name styles;

3. Adopt suggestive marks over merely descriptive ones...

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