By Jaqwaun Myles
January 22, 2026 I had the opportunity to interview Ms. Natalie Elizaroff, who works for the USPTO, as a Trademark Examining Attorney. Ms. Elizaroff has additionally worked in private IP practice before her time at the USPTO and earned her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology from the Loyola University Chicago, and her law degree from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law.
Question 1:
Could you tell me what led you down an IP career path and why you wanted to specialize in IP/Trademark law.
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
Yeah, honestly, it’s been a rather peculiar journey from some other folks because I originally started more in medicine, so my undergrad was actually molecular biology, and I was going more into the doctor field and all that stuff, but after working at a hospital for a bit of time, I decided to switch gears and focus more on law because I wanted to make, I guess, more of a difference not on the medical side, but more on the policy and legal side of things, so I transitioned into law. I practiced at a personal injury law firm for a bit to kind of get a sense of whether this was a field I wanted to go into at all.
After I worked essentially as a paralegal legal secretary for a bit, I went into law school and found out about IP by happenstance because I don’t think it’s something that you necessarily hear about day to day until you’re actually more involved in working in that field, and I found out simply because I was talking to folks, I was mentioning my science background, and given that I have a hard science background, a lot of people recommended for me to go into patents because you kind of always have a choice whether when you’re going into IP, whether you want to do hard IP or soft IP. I opted to go more into trademarks because I like, I think they’re a lot more fast-paced. I think it’s a field that definitely moves along in the systems a little bit faster while the patent process is a lot slower. It’s very nuanced. You have to pay a lot of attention to detail, and as much as I like seeing how things come together, I preferred seeing visually what it looks like for consumers, so that’s why I lean more heavily into trademarks.
Question 2:
Did you know that you wanted to eventually be a trademark examiner at the USPTO, or did you go into law school thinking that you wanted to do private practice?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
When I was in law school, I actually, I applied for, so the USPTO has positions for essentially law clerks, and you start at a GS-9 level, and then once you pass the bar, you’d go transition into a trademark examiner attorney. I applied for that program, I applied for that program, didn’t get in. So, I wanted to work at the USPTO, or even the WIPO, one of the two, but when I was in law school and I tried that route, it bounced back on me, so I was like, okay, I’ll reorient. I happened to find an opportunity of working as a law clerk at a small boutique IP firm. When I was in law school, I was talking to some folks that were involved in IP, I had a 3L who was actually working at the small IP firm, and he was leaving to go elsewhere, and he referred me into the firm to start there, because he was going to be transitioning to a larger firm, and they were going to be looking for somebody else to fill those shoes.
So, I stumbled my way into a small law firm, and one of the benefits of working in, I think, a smaller legal environment is you get to practice with a lot of different things. And that’s the same way when I was working at a personal injury firm. Small firms don’t really have the luxury of a plethora of clients, so they take cases as they come in. So that could be patent matters, that could be trademark matters, it could be copyright, it could be something very nuanced, like issues with domain registrations and infringement of that realm. So, you get a lot of different fields of experience in a very small-like, period of time, because you’re constantly trying to find work.
And I was grateful for the opportunities that I had at the small firm, because not only did it give me a breadth of experience, but it also allowed me to do a lot of legal writing at that time, because the firm was very interested in publishing different stories and different matters. I didn’t always think I’d be in a small firm environment. In between the small firm and the USPTO position, I had somebody reach out to me on LinkedIn, say that I might be a good fit for a general counsel position.
I got to work as an in-house counsel, and it was a very different environment. And while I utilized my trademark skills there, it wasn’t necessarily at the forefront. Because when you’re working at any kind of organization, you’re more focused on what does the business need and what are they looking for? And then I applied to the USPTO again, by chance, forgot about the fact that I applied there at all. Because any kind of federal position, it’s usually a very lengthy. It’s a pretty lengthy period of time between when you submit your application to any time that you hear feedback about where you might even be in the process. So, I submit my application, forgot all about it. About three or four months later, I get the email saying, we’d like a writing sample. Like, okay, sure. Sent that off to them as well. Forgot about it for the next couple of months. Because it’s, it’s very lengthy. And then I finally got another email, like, we’re interested in having an interview. I’m like, okay. And after all that, I got the offer. So, it was a very, it was a very gratifying kind of experience. But it was definitely not what I expected.
Question 3:
Could you talk about the workload that you received at an IP firm versus the workload that you have now as a USPTO trademark examining attorney?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
Yeah, so it’s, it’s, it’s a pretty big difference, um, in the sense of what you’re expected to do and how difficult the kind of work is. So, at the law firm, you have to be focused a lot of the time on your billable hours, how much work are you doing to bill your clients? Are you able to find the clients to actually sustain the workload? And it’s varied, because when you’re at a smaller firm, it’s generally you, you’re doing everything in a case. So, you can start the case, you can help somebody get their trademark. And then, you know, fast forward a couple months, or maybe some years or whatever you have the registration, and somebody is infringing upon it. So, you might also get involved in the legal proceedings with it, you would you’d be the one
that’s drafting, filing, complaints, motions, etc.
So, at a law firm, you have, you’re kind of in control of the entire process. When you’re at larger firms, and even some mid sized firms, you sometimes get segued into, or you’re more focused on prosecution, as opposed to litigation. So, because there’s some firms that specialize in IP litigation, and that’s what you do, you like, that’s, that’s your gambit. Whereas other ones, all you do is the, you know, I’m helping you create trademarks and helping you file for them that portion. So, at a law firm, it’s generally, you’re always, you’re always looking for work, and you’re always making sure that you have that work coming in. Not only on the client side, but you also have to be very focused on networking, getting your name out, having people find you because they want you to be their attorney, going to conferences, meetings, presentations, etc. So that’s kind of like the caliber of work at a law firm. Working at the USPTO, there’s different grade levels to begin with. So, it goes from nine to fourteen. And depending on where you are on the road, you have different options available to you. And you can just be a trademark examiner and do that. You can also look for mentorship opportunities; you could look for more manager positions where you want more responsibility. There’s also the route of you can eventually go into like working with the TTAB and something like that and kind of segue into that. So, there’s also different kind of growth available at the USPTO. But in terms of the work caliber, it’s very steady. So, you’re not looking for work because it’s always there. There’s such a huge backlog of applications that all I have to do during my day is I just need to pull applications. I pull applications into my docket, and I review them based on like, have they essentially checked all the boxes.
So, I’d say working at the USPTO is a lot more, it’s just a steady influx of work that I’m not necessarily like hunting down clients. I always know that there’s work available. And I get to work at the pace that I set. So, as you’re mentioning, it is, we do have, like, quotas, essentially for the quarters. And there’s levels of like, what is considered to be fully successful, or just like meeting it, or like you’re, or like you’re commendable, or you’re doing a great job. And it just really depends on quality and quantity. Like, personally, I find working at the USPTO a fantastic, a fantastic opportunity and a fantastic place because I get to still be remote. I set my workload for the day, or I work as I go, whatever happens to be in my day, like, I’m not as worried about. Such as okay, have I made, X amount of billable hours for the week? Yeah, it doesn’t concern me as much because first off, its quarter based second off, if I have one week where I don’t know, the pipes in my house burst or something of that nature, and I need to focus on household matters. I can make it up next week and just do more, do more examination of applications or something of that nature.
So, it’s a lot. I find it to be a much more relaxed atmosphere than when I was at a law firm. So, between the two, I, I prefer working at the USPTO as opposed to a law firm environment. But it also just depends on what you thrive in. And there are pros and cons that play out in different ways. Largely, one of those things is financial, because any kind of federal government position, whether it’s federal or state, you’re working for usually a lower pay than maybe the same person who’s working at a law firm, right? So, it’s kind of it’s one of those, what, what do you want to prioritize in your life at whatever point in your life that you’re at? So sometimes people from law school, they want to immediately, they want to go into a larger firm, make the money that they want to make, pay off the whatever loans they might have, pay off all that stuff, and then look at
more relaxed positions like working in house counsel or working at a federal position or something of that nature. So, it really just depends on what you’re looking for in your, in your career, in your experience, and like what your long-term goals are.
Question 4:
In terms of students that are interested in trademark law, but might not necessarily get a USPTO job after graduation or find a boutique firm that’s offering trademark law positions, what kind of advice would you give them if they still do want to practice trademark law, but they just don’t land it right away?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
So working at the USPTO, you really don’t need trademark experience. There’s a lot of people that were in my incoming class that weren’t necessarily, like, trademark trained or had any kind of IP experience under the belt, because the trademark office and the patent office, they provide all the tools anyone might need to be able to be a successful examiner. They teach you from the ground up and their training program is extensive. It’s pretty much a two-year program because you start in a like academy class that lasts about, six months and then you kind of transition into like you’re a little bit more on your own and then you have a mentor assigned to you, you have like a buddy assigned to you, like it’s a, it’s a hand-holding process where you can go from any kind of like legal background and jump into, into trademarks with the USPTO and you’d be able to do so. So, if you don’t necessarily have that kind of background for the practice of, like, trademark law in the federal government, you don’t need to worry about it.
Question 5: Are there any comparable skills that you’ve found in other aspects of law that can transfer over to trademark law if they were to get a position in that field in the future?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney) As long as you’re able to showcase really legal reasoning, abilities, skills, and something that I think is very important is just a level of creativity. You have to have a creative mind, you have to be open to a variety of different, a variety of different potentials because you see marks that are all sorts. They could be, you know, you have your standard marks, you have design marks, you have just about everything under your belt and you just have to keep an open mind when you’re examining and be thorough in terms of the examination process.
I know this touched upon one of the things that you had mentioned is like what things I did in law school to kind of gear myself into trademarks. I did do a trademark clinic. I did have classes that I was able to take. Like I took trademark law, copyright law, patent law, anything that was available in respect to intellectual property, I took while I was at law school. And to be completely honest, classes are great, but they don’t give you real life experience. So, I think any Joe could look online and look up about trademark law and get the basics about, like, what it is and have some kind of background knowledge. And not to say that the classes were absolutely pointless because I think, I think classes and like the law school environment gives you something else. It teaches you logical reasoning. It introduces you to networking.
It introduces you to the people that you’re going to be eventually practicing either with or in conjecture with. So maybe your friends are going into other fields of law, but they know you as the IP lawyer. And like that is what I think some of the most important tenants of law school is not necessarily what you’re taking learning wise from it, but it’s the people that you’re around and the kind of impact that you make on the people that you’re close with. So, when I took the trademark clinic, that was probably the closest I got to, like, real life experience because you at my trademark clinic, at least you’re assigned a docket. You’re assigned a couple of clients. You’re expected to actually reach out and communicate with them. And you go through the process of filing a trademark application with them in theory, if you get, if you have enough time to do so in the X amount of time that you have for the clinic. But in terms of like classes, I, I’d say those are, it’s great if you have them, it’s not a deal breaker if you don’t.
Question 6:
Going back to when you were at a law firm and advising clients, some clients can be very difficult if they’re stuck on their ways or want a trademark to be filed a certain way. So, when you’ve had those conversations with potential clients or clients about registering their trademark, how do those conversations kind of go? And have you found any ways or strategies or tips to get the clients to see your point of view or when you do have that stubborn client?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
So I haven’t had too many difficult clients thankfully. And when I was at the law firm, there was again, a pretty big variety of things that I actually handled. I will say that my experience after working at the patent and trademark has introduced me to a lot of different people and how they, how they accept essentially the things you have to say to them.
So, I’ll kind of balance between talking from my experience at the law firm to talking to people in my position at the USPTO, because there’s a lot of pro se applicants. And sometimes I’ve had instances where I reach out and, I bring bad news. And in the reality of some situations, sometimes there’s refusals that just can’t get overcome, or at least can’t get overcome in that particular application that I’m looking at. And there’s some parties that I’ve had, take that information with grace, and it’s easy to have that kind of conversation. And then there’s other times where I’m either talking to pro se applicants that just really don’t understand the process, So and that’s kind of some of those times when you have to take a step back, like, is that worth your time arguing with somebody who’s not going to see reason? If not, then usually I just put it in writing and leave that alone.
When it comes to clients, and working at a law firm, it’s a little bit different, because at the end of the day, you want to retain your clients, but you also have to be realistic about managing expectations. Sometimes if it’s a mark that falls into gray area, which is oftentimes the case, I try and present both sides. I explain the things that can be run into as issues, and ways that we can get around it. But I also say like, if all else fails, this might be the worst-case scenario, is that something that you’re prepared to face. And some clients want to, want to spearhead it and try with what they have, because it’s their vision. And as long as you’re upfront about, kind of, what can happen, it’s a little bit easier to manage down the road.
And the thing I see all the time as an examiner is people filing applications on their own, because working with attorneys, sometimes it’s expensive. And sure, there’s, there’s a benefit to it, but trademark attorneys know their way around the system a bit. And they know what to look for, they know what to, what kind of traps that they can step in. Whereas individual applicants don’t necessarily have that knowledge and sometimes shoot themselves in the foot by doing things that can’t be corrected without essentially spending more money. But that’s something that you have to balance in terms of like, is it a business? Is it an individual? How much money do they have to play with? And is it worth it down the, like, in the long run?
I haven’t had, like, such stubborn clients that after I’ve explained everything, they still refuse to see reason. Granted, I know that isn’t everybody’s experience. And sometimes, if they, if like, if they want to pay you to go down a foolhardy path. Yeah, that’s your decision as an attorney is do you want, like, do you want to invest your time and something that you know, is going to later fail, but that’s what your client wants, depending on where, like, where you’re working. Sometimes you have to do that. In-house counsel, for example, doesn’t usually have that kind of luxury of saying no to their client because their client is the business. Law firms, you can pick and choose your clients. If you think it’s a foolhardy path, and you’re pretty much just setting yourself and them up for failure. Can you turn away that client because you think it’s, like, not a good case? You can, it’s always an option. And that’s just something you have to like, weigh. And at the end of the day, all of it comes down to time.
At a law firm, it’s always about time and billable hours, because sometimes you have a client where maybe if you spend an hour talking to them, and just like, walking them through all the scenarios, maybe they’ll get around to it. And maybe like, you’ll benefit in the long run of having a client that is loyal to you and appreciates the time that you put into them. Sometimes you don’t want to spend that hour, you have only 15 minutes to spare. So that’s something that, like, when you enter the practicing world, whatever place that you end up, is something that you’re oftentimes going to have to think about is how do you want to invest your time? And how important is your time to you? So, and that’s, a that’s, a much bigger question in the sense of, practicing at all, because I ask that question, even as a trademark examiner at times when I decide, do I want to call this pro se applicant? Or do I not want to call this pro se applicant and potentially be on the phone for 30 minutes? How important is that 30 minutes to me?
And what I found, at least at this point in my career, is I don’t mind taking extra time. I know there’s many attorneys who count every like, every minute, I’m not necessarily one of those people. And I find that I have much better interactions going forward, when I decide to maybe take a little bit of extra time to give to somebody else. Because it’s, it’s oftentimes benefited me down the road when I, I had a brief period of time where I practiced on my own. And the interactions that I had with clients and the kind of grace that I gave them, benefited me by them later coming back with either other work or other people who they wanted to refer to me because they appreciated the experience of somebody who just, like, wanted to invest in them. It gets more complicated when you, when your name gets out there when you get busier, that’s when you really have to start thinking about it. But when you’re an up-and-coming attorney, sometimes giving somebody that extra 15 minutes makes a difference.
Question 7:
Which kind of office action refusal reasons did you give and see the most? As a practicing attorney at a firm and then also now, as an examiner? Is there one that kind of takes the bread and butter for the most that you give out? And if so, which one is that?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
Hands down in just about every setting I’ve been in, it’s been likelihood of confusion. I’d say, likelihood of confusion is at the very top in terms of a refusal that I either issue often, or I have received as an attorney when I was at the firm and had to try and argue around. But it’s unfortunate, there’s a limit to things that people end up filing. And at some point, you’re going to those similarities. And as a trademark examiner, I think it’s easier to search in the system, because now I know what, how to search properly, and a lot of different tricks. And unfortunately, that sometimes gives marks that sound similar, look similar, and it’s easy to make those comparisons. When I was at a law firm, I definitely think I got blindsided a couple of times because of search strategies that I gained as an examiner that I didn’t have when I was a practicing attorney at the law firm.
So, likelihood of confusion is the top. I’d say shortly after that is merely descriptiveness. That’s something I see often enough, with usually pro se applicants, because people don’t necessarily think that their mark is merely descriptive. As an attorney, you could usually say that to your client and say that, hey, this is likely going to be an issue. So, I think that’s one that if I looked at like categories, I probably would issue that a lot more often to just individual applicants, as opposed to people who file with an attorney. And to kind of give you a top three, the third most one that I see often enough that it comes up is a specimen refusal. It’s one of those very simple things. And that’s one of the easier things to correct. But especially in a lot of the technical categories, whether it’s software or oftentimes when it’s software and other things like that, people don’t really know what to attach or how to attach it. Or sometimes they just attach nothing at all, or just an image of the mark. So, a specimen refusal is something I see fairly often. Again, more often from individual applicants than ones with an attorney.
Question 8:
If you could change one thing about the USPTO trademark process, what would it be?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
Something that I’ve gotten a lot is when I reach out to applicants, and I’m like, hey, this is what’s going on right now. And they’re like, this is the first time I’ve heard from a human being in respect to this entire process. Because sometimes it’s very difficult to reach. Obviously, we’re in a little bit of a complicated time right now. And so, there’s certain departments that have gotten either a bit more shorthanded or changed around. So, we have a thing called the Trademark Assistance Center, which applicants can call into and or email. And I’ve heard very mixed reviews from that lately is simply because either the wait time is unbearably long, they send an email, nobody ever responds back to them. So that’s something I wish we had a bit more. I wish
we had a bit more investment into, because I think pro se applicants would really benefit from it. Because the fees, I understand why the fees are there.
And I’m actually very happy with something that we implemented recently is charging people additional fees when, it’s when they could just use the templates that are good, because sometimes people enter IDs that are like pages long. So, like, that’s something that I appreciate that we implemented. But as an overall thing, I wish there was a bit more clarity for pro se applicants, because I understand your everyday Joe who makes only so much during the month, and they can’t afford to hire an attorney, they can’t afford to do the whole clearance search with an attorney, all that jazz. So, they try and do it on their own. And then, and then they get smacked with all these things that they can barely understand. Because it’s a lot of legal mumbo jumbo to them. And so I wish there was a bit more support for pro se applicants in terms of just what we can offer at the at the trademark office in terms of just like our trademark assistance center, and maybe clarifying some of the things online, because that’s just one of the things I hear all the time, I spent 15 or 20 minutes with an applicant who was just like, you’re the first person who’s actually given like me the time of day to like, explain anything that that is going on in terms of like the application and like what I’m supposed to be looking at.
* Natalie also later mentioned that one of the biggest things she would change is creating better protections or systems to help prevent pro se applicants from being scammed by third parties. Because the trademark application information is so publicly available, pro se applicants are often targeted by scammers who pose as USPTO officials or trademark examiners and demand payment. This not only harms applicants financially, but also creates confusion and mistrust. She explained that when she, as the actual examining attorney, reaches out to applicants, some do not respond because they believe the communication is another scam, which can ultimately cause otherwise valid applications to go abandoned. *
Question 9:
How has trademark changed since you’ve been in the field?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
I think the legal sphere as a whole, is generally behind where things are in the real world. So, one of the biggest things, and everyone knows about it, is artificial intelligence. That came around, and everybody was blindsided. Like, what, what do we do? How do we approach this? There’s no laws about this. There’s nothing for us to look at that’s even similar to how to go about responding to these issues. So, in terms of like, big changes, I think that’s one of the biggest ones that anybody can point to in IP, in really any sector, is the introduction of artificial intelligence, and how that’s changed not only the work process, but how it’s changed interactions with even basic documents. So, I think between when I was starting, that wasn’t a thing. And now I have to kind of adjust to it in day-to-day life, whether it is in the practicing capacity or just in a regular individual capacity. But that’s definitely one of the biggest changes, I think.
Question 10:
How do you see trademark law evolving within the next 5-10 years?
Natalie Elizaroff (USPTO Examining Attorney)
I think in the next 5-10 years, there’s going to be a lot of, like, changes about the law with respect to AI, is really the, is the big thing that I’m seeing. But I also think that there’s going to be a lot more implementation of those tools, both in the legal industry and in the federal industry, in the sense of, again, streamlining certain things. When it comes to writing, there’s actually a lot of shorthand things that artificial intelligence can kind of assist with. I think there’s things that can’t be replaced by AI, but I think there’s a lot of things that can be supported by the use of AI. But the biggest thing is where the data is, and that’s going to be the balance with respect to any kind of implementation of those tools, is having a knowledge of how that information gets stored, utilized, and transformed, balanced with, yes, these tools are certainly helpful in the industry, but where’s, like, where are the potential holes and issues with utilizing this technology?
Because there’s some, every other day, you see that there’s been some kind of breach, some kind of hack, some kind of issue that happened with systems. And on the federal side of it, that’s catastrophic. You don’t really want to have, you don’t want to implement any kind of technology that has backdoor access, that somebody else can figure out how to get into. And law firms also, like, client information is sacred, so any kind of backdoor access is concerning. I think it’s sometimes easier for smaller companies and smaller firms, because realistically, your hackers don’t care about them. They’re, they’re mainly, they want to see what’s the biggest fish that they can fry, and that’s going to be any kind of government entity, any kind of, like, really large company. Larger law firms, maybe, but again, that’s not necessarily the targets that they would want to hit. So, I think in the next five, ten years, that’s going to keep that fine balance of incorporating these helpful tools into the industries is going to be at the forefront of anything that we’re doing.
Interviewee: Natalie Elizaroff
Interviewer: Jaqwaun Myles