A registration service files marks, designs and copyrights for many small clients at volume. Revenue depends on files moving on time, so one missed hearing date or response deadline can cost a client a right and the service its name.
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Share your requirementsA trademark and IP registration service takes in applications from shop owners, start-ups, exporters and individuals, then files them with the registry and follows each one through examination, objection, publication and renewal. The work is repetitive but unforgiving. Staff fill forms, search the register, draft replies to examination reports, upload documents and chase status. Clients are many and small, so the front desk fields constant calls asking whether their mark is safe. A few agents or attorneys sign and argue; most of the team prepares and tracks. Deadlines come from the registry, not from the firm. Juniors learn on the job and then leave for law firms or set up alone. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in trademark and IP registration services. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A reply to an objection is due on a fixed date. If the person tracking it is on leave or has left, the date can pass without anyone owning it.
Status lives in a personal spreadsheet or in someone's head, so a sudden exit leaves open files nobody can read.
A filing executive who has handled a few hundred applications is worth a lot to a rival firm or a client, and training starts over.
The same status question arrives by call, chat and email, and the people drafting replies lose hours answering it.
One person describes goods and services carefully and another copies from a template, so objections vary by who prepared the file.
Rushes follow launches, festivals and funding rounds. The team is stretched at peaks and underused after, and overtime is rarely recorded.
Logos, identity papers and unreleased brand names sit on personal phones and mail folders, and leave with the person who held them.
It is unclear who checks a filing before it goes, so mistakes are found by the registry rather than by the firm.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Policies, Compliance and Governance; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a trademark and IP registration services business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A named preparer and a named reviewer on each matter, shown on the tracker, so leave or exit never leaves a file unowned.
A named preparer and a named reviewer on each matter, shown on the tracker, so leave or exit never leaves a file unowned. The attendance and leave process helps plan cover.
Hearing, reply and renewal dates entered once, reviewed weekly by a senior, not kept in private sheets.
Hearing, reply and renewal dates entered once, reviewed weekly by a senior, not kept in private sheets.
The steps and checks before any application goes, so quality does not depend on who prepared it.
The steps and checks before any application goes, so quality does not depend on who prepared it. The HR documentation process shows how to keep it current.
A new executive shadows live cases, does supervised filings and is signed off in stages.
A new executive shadows live cases, does supervised filings and is signed off in stages. The onboarding process lays this out.
A planned status message at fixed points, so clients stop calling and staff get their hours back.
A planned status message at fixed points, so clients stop calling and staff get their hours back.
Caseload by person and by stage, with a look at who is overloaded before the quarterly rush.
Caseload by person and by stage, with a look at who is overloaded before the quarterly rush. The performance management process can host this.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A written filing checklist, roles and confidentiality terms that every preparer and reviewer follows.
A staged first three months so new executives file correctly before they file alone.
Short, repeatable training on search, objections and drafting, so skill grows inside the firm.
Clear review points on accuracy, turnaround and caseload, so quiet slippage is seen early.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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How an India head can sort a global parent's HR policies into apply, adapt or replace, write an India addendum with advisers, and keep headquarters on side.
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A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
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What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Give every case an owner and a backup, and keep one shared tracker that a senior reviews each week. The cover plan matters more than the reminder tool.
It depends on prior experience, but plan for a supervised period in which the person shadows, then files with review, then files alone. Sign off each stage in writing.
Where the team size allows, yes. A second pair of eyes before filing catches most errors, and it spreads knowledge so no file depends on one person.
Send planned status updates at known points and give the client desk a short script. Most calls come from silence, not from real urgency.
Keep them in one controlled store, limit access by role, and put confidentiality terms in every contract. Remove access on the last working day.
We would ask how many open cases lack a named backup, where your dates are kept and what happened the last time a key preparer left. A sensible first project is a shared tracker with case ownership and a filing checklist. Scope is written down for you to accept or change.
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