La Pyramide de la Marque™: prioritising your trademark portfolio
Free tool · La Pyramide de la Marque™ (The Trademark Pyramid)
This interactive tool invites you to explore the key dimensions of your trademark portfolio, identify certain points of attention and begin to reflect on your priorities and strategic trade-offs.
Decide on 12 items in your portfolio, across the four levels of the Pyramid. See your decisions at a glance. Build your 90-day action plan.
About 20 minutes. Free and open to all. Your answers remain confidential and are not stored.
Under budgetary pressure, trademarks all too often become an adjustment variable, sometimes at the cost of serious legal, commercial and financial consequences. La Pyramide de la Marque™, developed by Philippe Rodhain, French and European Trademark and Design Attorney and founding partner of IP SPHERE, rests on a simple principle: the aim is not to protect less, but to protect more selectively. An effective intellectual property budget is not one that is cut across the board: it is a better-allocated budget, focused on the signs, territories and classes that genuinely support the business.
Who it is for
For in-house legal departments and trademark portfolio managers, caught between two demands that are hard to reconcile: ensuring effective protection of the company’s intangible assets while, at the same time, reducing the costs involved.
What the method delivers
- A documented decision rather than a blind cut. The method aims to make it possible to reduce trademark portfolio budgets by 20 to 30% without compromising the level of protection. This reduction is not an end in itself: it follows from identifying the assets that are truly strategic, and the savings made on secondary registrations can be reinvested in key trademarks.
- A living tool, not a static audit. Where an audit is a snapshot, the Pyramid is a process of strategic reflection that brings together the rules of trademark law, mentoring and the psychology of decision-making. The audit provides its objective foundation.
- A protected decision. The method works like noise-cancelling headphones for decision-making: it helps you decide away from immediate pressures, short-term constraints and the cognitive biases that cloud judgement.
How it works
Four levels: vital, essential, preventive, strategic defence
- Level 1 – The foundations: filing and registration (vital). Without a filing, there is no exclusive right. The aim is not to file everything, but to file wisely: the name first, the core of the business, and territories that match the commercial strategy.
- Level 2 – Renewals (essential). Maintain as a priority the trademarks that directly protect revenue; identify the registrations that could rationally be abandoned (duplicates, dormant marks, names no longer in active use).
- Level 3 – Evidence of use (preventive). A trademark that has not been used for five years is liable to revocation. Archiving dated evidence as you go (invoices, catalogues, screenshots) costs almost nothing; reconstructing it in the urgency of a dispute is slow, costly and sometimes impossible.
- Level 4 – Watching and enforcement (strategic defence). Trademark watching is not an all-or-nothing item, but a dial to be set according to the strategic trademarks and the acceptable level of risk.
Four steps
- Map the portfolio, trademark by trademark and territory by territory.
- Assess each registration objectively: contribution to the business, risk if the right is lost, competitive exposure.
- Decide: maintain, optimise, postpone or abandon.
- Record these choices in a documented action plan.
A 90-day cycle
- Week 1 – Map: the portfolio and the strategic trademarks.
- Month 1 – Prioritise: filings, renewals, watching.
- Month 2 – Secure: litigation budget, internal decision-making protocol.
- Month 3 – Consolidate: evidence of use, basic record-keeping.
This cycle can then be extended over 12 months through additional modules.
Frequently asked questions
“What is the first smart cut?”
Duplicates, unnecessary variants and protections that are not aligned with actual commercial use.
“I have to choose: filing or watching?”
Filing is vital. Watching can be adjusted, but it is indispensable for key trademarks.
“Logo or name: what should be protected first?”
The name first; the logo if it is the visual that carries the commercial value.
“Is letting a trademark lapse and refiling it later the same thing?”
No, it is a false economy: losing your earlier rights leaves you more vulnerable.
“How do I know whether to take action?”
If the infringement concerns a strategic trademark, acting early costs less.
“How much can be saved without risk?”
Between 20 and 30% of the trademark portfolio budget.
The masterclass replay
Discuss your situation
Would you like to know how La Pyramide de la Marque™ could apply to your situation? We offer a 30-minute conversation to present it to you and discuss it. To arrange an appointment, contact us or call us on +33 5 56 96 50 11.
Further reading (in French): La Pyramide de la Marque™: optimising a trademark portfolio budget without weakening the core of its protection.
