Discover how Stencil by Page Vault streamlines trademark prosecution, boosting efficiency and compliance while reducing manual work and increasing team consistency.
Last Updated February 2026
Trademark prosecution is the economic engine of many trademark practices and one of the last workflows still run manually.
While litigation and brand enforcement have benefited from sustained investment in technology and structured processes, prosecution has largely continued to rely on manual research, email threads, spreadsheets, and institutional knowledge. For teams managing high volumes of matters under fixed-fee models, that gap is not merely operational, it has meaningful economic implications.
At the same time, fueled by heightened USPTO scrutiny, expectations around trademark filings have risen. Yet, despite rising expectations and significant manual work, the underlying prosecution workflow has not meaningfully evolved.
Today, we are introducing Stencil by Page Vault, a purpose-built platform designed to bring structure, efficiency, and defensibility to the trademark prosecution lifecycle.
For more than a decade, Page Vault has supported intellectual property teams in litigation and enforcement, preserving digital evidence in matters where defensibility is paramount. Through that work, we began to observe that our technology was increasingly being used upstream in trademark prosecution, particularly for specimen capture.
That usage revealed a broader operational pattern. Specimens are only one component of a larger challenge. Prosecution teams are performing substantial amounts of repetitive, manual work well before a filing is submitted—drafting goods and services descriptions, searching and cross-referencing the ID Manual, converting legacy or foreign identifications, and organizing renewal filings with proof of continued use. These processes are time-intensive and often managed through disconnected systems rather than structured workflows.
In contrast to enforcement and litigation, which have benefited from modern infrastructure, prosecution has remained largely unchanged.
In recent years, expectations surrounding trademark filings have meaningfully shifted. The USPTO has increased scrutiny across the prosecution lifecycle, with more exacting examination of goods and services descriptions, heightened review of specimens, and expanded use of post-registration audits, expungement, and reexamination proceedings. As a result, what was once viewed as routine administrative work now carries greater compliance risk, and the cost of missteps—whether in the form of refusals, delays, or downstream vulnerability—has grown.
At the same time, the underlying workflow for building and maintaining trademark applications has not evolved at the same pace.
Because prosecution is typically handled on a flat-fee basis, the additional diligence required by heightened scrutiny is rarely recoverable. The result is increasing margin pressure, slower throughput, and workflows that depend heavily on individual expertise rather than structured systems.
Stencil is a purpose-built platform designed to streamline the most repetitive parts of trademark prosecution—without displacing attorney judgment. In the Middle Ages, artisans introduced stencils to scale their craft. Instead of freehanding every decorative element, they used structured patterns to scale production while increasing consistency, preserving quality, and reducing time. While the creativity and expertise remained, the mechanics became more efficient.
That is the role Stencil plays in trademark prosecution today.
Stencil accelerates the first 80% of common prosecution tasks by:
Stencil removes the scavenger-hunt work—manual searching, cross-referencing, and formatting. Everything is reviewable by design.
The result is a consistent, streamlined workflow that fits into how trademark teams already operate today.
In early use, teams adopting Stencil are already seeing measurable results.
For new applications, firms report saving approximately 30–90 minutes per matter, depending on complexity. First drafts are often 60–90% client-ready on the initial pass, significantly reducing rewrite cycles and client back-and-forth. Teams are also seeing more consistent coverage across filings, particularly in matters that would otherwise require heavy manual interpretation and ID Manual navigation.
In one example, a partner at an AmLaw 100 firm used Stencil to draft a goods and services description for a client still in the R&D phase, without a finalized product offering. What would typically have required substantial research and iterative drafting was completed in approximately 20 minutes, producing a USPTO-compliant identification that the client approved without revision.
Efficiency, however, is only part of the story. Early impact also includes:
Stencil is also optimizing how work is distributed within teams. Historically, certain drafting tasks have remained concentrated with senior trademark partners because they required experience, pattern recognition, and business judgment. Firms are now reporting that Stencil enables junior associates and paralegals to produce stronger first drafts independently. The tool not only accelerates drafting, but also makes the reasoning behind compliant descriptions more transparent—creating a training effect that scales.
For flat-fee prosecution practices, these gains translate directly into revenue: by introducing a workflow that reduces time spent on tasks, firms can scale volume while simultaneously producing higher quality outcomes for their clients.
Stencil represents a first step toward a more efficient, consistent, and scalable prosecution workflow—starting with applications and extending into renewal readiness. Built on the same legal-grade foundation that has made Page Vault a trusted name in intellectual property, Stencil brings efficiency and to an area of trademark practice that has long operated without modern infrastructure.
