Are the Two Baseline 'Squarely' Marks (SQUARELY STYLISH / SQUARELY NATURAL) Still in Their Last-Recorded DEAD/LIVE Status on Filing Day?
The question
Are the two 2026-04-25 baseline 'Squarely' marks (SQUARELY STYLISH / SQUARELY NATURAL) still in the same DEAD/LIVE status as of filing day? Context: before RDCO files its intent-to-use SQUARELY application (likely IC 009/016/028/041), the two pre-existing unrelated marks identified on 2026-04-25 need a live status re-check — has either flipped DEAD↔LIVE, been abandoned, renewed, or assigned?
What we already know (from the vault)
- Per [[2026-04-25-squarely-current-state-review]], a USPTO search verified on 2026-04-25 found NO trademark filed for "Squarely," "Squarely Puzzles," or "Squarely Up To You" as a puzzle brand, and surfaced exactly two unrelated marks: SQUARELY STYLISH (glassware) recorded DEAD, and SQUARELY NATURAL (pet food) recorded LIVE but owned by a different party in an unrelated class. This is the baseline status being re-checked here.
- Per [[2026-06-19-squarely-trademark-clearance-search]], a fresh automated clearance pass re-cited that same two-mark baseline but explicitly could not re-verify either mark's status live — Justia/Trademarkia returned HTTP 403 to automated fetch and the live USPTO search (tmsearch.uspto.gov, which replaced the retired TESS in Nov 2023) is not automatable. Nothing in indexed results contradicted the baseline, but it was not re-confirmed. That brief filed this exact re-verification as an open follow-up.
- Per [[2026-06-13-squarely-uspto-trademark-filing-strategy]], the filing plan is a standard-character SQUARELY word mark, IC 016 (printed puzzle books) first, expanding to IC 009/041/028 at iOS launch; the most likely substantive risk was assessed as a Section 2(e)(1) merely-descriptive refusal, NOT a likelihood-of-confusion collision with either baseline mark (both sit in unrelated classes — IC 021 glassware / IC 031 pet food).
- Neither baseline mark is in any of RDCO's target filing classes; both were treated as non-blocking even when LIVE. The separately-tracked real-category collision is Hex Tree Games' "Squarely" Steam puzzle game (Nov 2025), covered in [[2026-06-20-squarely-common-law-priority-vs-hex-tree]] — that is a different conflict than this brief.
What the web says
(Automated pass via WebSearch + WebFetch on 2026-06-24. The authenticated live registers — tmsearch.uspto.gov and tsdr.uspto.gov — are JS-gated and not directly fetchable; the secondary mirrors Justia and uspto.report returned HTTP 403 to automated fetch. No USPTO serial/registration number or live DEAD/LIVE status could be directly confirmed this pass. Findings below are commercial-use signals, not register reads.)
- SQUARELY NATURAL — strong indirect "still in commerce" signal. SquarePet's "Squarely Natural" pet-food line is actively selling across multiple retailers as of this pass: the brand's own store (shop.mysquarepet.com), Amazon (example SKU), Chewy (listing), and trade press carrying the mark with a ™ symbol (PetfoodIndustry, Pet Age launch coverage). Active, ongoing commercial use is consistent with the 2026-04-25 LIVE baseline — but commercial use is NOT the same as a confirmed live USPTO registration (a mark can lapse/abandon while the product still sells).
- SQUARELY STYLISH — no record surfaced either way. No trademark record for "SQUARELY STYLISH" appeared in any indexed result across USPTO, Justia, uspto.report, or Trademark Elite (USPTO search portal, USPTO search landing). Searches surfaced only unrelated "Square*" marks (SQUAREAGE, SQUAREGLES). A DEAD/abandoned mark frequently drops out of secondary indexes, so absence is weakly consistent with the DEAD baseline — but this is inference, not confirmation. No live glassware commercial use of "Squarely Stylish" surfaced either.
- No automatable path to a true live status read. Both TSDR (the canonical status-and-document system) and the USPTO trademark search require interactive/JS-gated access; secondary mirrors 403 to bots. This matches the 2026-06-19 brief's finding exactly — nothing has changed about register fetchability.
- Neither mark was confirmed flipped, abandoned, renewed, or assigned this pass. No evidence of a status change in either direction was found; equally, no positive live confirmation that status is unchanged.
Convergences and contradictions
- No contradiction found vs the 2026-04-25 baseline — nothing surfaced suggesting SQUARELY STYLISH went LIVE or SQUARELY NATURAL went DEAD/abandoned/assigned to a new owner.
- One corroborating convergence: SQUARELY NATURAL's active multi-retailer commercial presence (with ™ usage) corroborates that the pet-food owner is still trading under the mark, indirectly supporting the LIVE baseline.
- Residual gap (not a contradiction): SQUARELY STYLISH could not be located at all this pass; "absent from indexes" weakly supports "still DEAD" but cannot rule out a re-file/revival. Neither mark's status was positively re-confirmed against the live register.
Synthesis for RDCO
Bottom line: this does NOT change the Squarely filing go/no-go or class strategy, and there is no evidence either baseline mark has changed status — but a true live re-verification is still outstanding and should be folded into the same attorney/IP-Accelerator clearance engagement the prior two briefs already recommended, not treated as a separate gate.
The reason the answer is low-stakes for the filing decision: both baseline marks sit in classes unrelated to RDCO's targets (glassware IC 021 / pet food IC 031 vs. RDCO's IC 009/016/028/041), and both were assessed as non-blocking even in their LIVE state. The load-bearing collision risk for RDCO is not these two marks — it is (a) the Section 2(e)(1) merely-descriptive refusal risk for a square-grid puzzle named "Squarely," and (b) the same-category Hex Tree Games "Squarely" Steam game in the digital-games space (IC 009/041). A status flip on a pet-food or glassware mark would not move either of those. So even in the worst case — say SQUARELY NATURAL is still fully LIVE and registered — the IC 016-first word-mark path stays clear, and the IC 009/041 caution is driven by Hex Tree, not by these marks.
That said, the honest conclusion on the literal question is: live verification is still required and was not obtainable in this automated pass. The last-known status (SQUARELY STYLISH = DEAD/glassware; SQUARELY NATURAL = LIVE/pet food, different owner) is carried forward unchanged, now with one corroborating commercial signal for NATURAL and a weak absence-of-record signal for STYLISH. Neither is a substitute for a TSDR pull. The single best confirmation step is cheap and definitive: an attorney (or the founder, manually, in a browser) runs each mark's serial number through tsdr.uspto.gov to read the live event history (registered / abandoned / cancelled / Section 8/9 renewal / assignment). Because both prior briefs already recommend routing the filing through a USPTO attorney or Amazon IP Accelerator — and a full live clearance across IC 009/016/028/041 is part of that engagement anyway — re-verifying these two specific marks adds essentially zero marginal cost; it is one line item on a clearance search that is already happening.
Residual uncertainty is bounded and asymmetric: the realistic failure mode is not "a baseline mark flipped and now blocks us" (they are in unrelated classes), it is simply "we filed citing a stale status in our own records." That is a documentation-hygiene risk, not a filing-risk. Do not let it stall the IC 016 book-class filing. Do close it during the attorney clearance so RDCO's IP file reflects a verified, dated read on filing day rather than an inference.
Open follow-ups
- Pull each baseline mark's live TSDR record by serial number (SQUARELY STYLISH; SQUARELY NATURAL) to read the canonical DEAD/LIVE status, last status date, and any Section 8/9/assignment events — via attorney or a manual browser session, since TSDR is not automatable.
- Confirm SQUARELY NATURAL's current registrant of record (is it still SquarePet / the original 2026-04-25 owner, or has it been assigned?) — relevant only for completeness, not for RDCO's go/no-go.
- Fold this two-mark re-verification into the single attorney/IP-Accelerator clearance search already recommended in [[2026-06-19-squarely-trademark-clearance-search]] and [[2026-06-13-squarely-uspto-trademark-filing-strategy]] rather than running it standalone.
- Capture the verified status + date in the Squarely IP file on filing day so RDCO's own records stop carrying an unverified inference forward.
Related
- [[2026-06-19-squarely-trademark-clearance-search]] — the fresh clearance pass that filed this re-verification as an open follow-up; same TSDR/Justia fetchability limits
- [[2026-04-25-squarely-current-state-review]] — baseline 4-surface review recording the original status (SQUARELY STYLISH dead / SQUARELY NATURAL live, no puzzle mark)
- [[2026-06-13-squarely-uspto-trademark-filing-strategy]] — filing-strategy brief; IC 016-first word mark, attorney/IP-Accelerator routing that this re-verification rides on
- [[2026-06-20-squarely-common-law-priority-vs-hex-tree]] — the separately-tracked same-category Hex Tree Games "Squarely" collision (the conflict that actually matters, unlike these two marks)
Sources
- Vault:
~/rdco-vault/06-reference/research/2026-06-19-squarely-trademark-clearance-search.md - Vault:
~/rdco-vault/01-projects/squarely/state-reviews/2026-04-25-squarely-current-state-review.md - Vault:
~/rdco-vault/06-reference/research/2026-06-13-squarely-uspto-trademark-filing-strategy.md - Vault:
~/rdco-vault/06-reference/research/2026-06-20-squarely-common-law-priority-vs-hex-tree.md - USPTO — Trademark Search (current system, replaced TESS Nov 2023; JS-gated, not automatable): https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/
- USPTO — Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR; canonical live status, not automatable): https://tsdr.uspto.gov/
- USPTO — Trademark search landing: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search
- SquarePet "Squarely Natural" brand store (live commercial use): https://shop.mysquarepet.com/collections/squarely-natural
- PetfoodIndustry — SquarePet SquarelyNatural (™ usage): https://www.petfoodindustry.com/nutrition/product/15462533/squarepet-squarelynatural-food-for-dogs-and-cats
- Pet Age — SquarePet introduces Squarely Natural line: https://www.petage.com/squarepet-introduces-squarely-natural-line/
- Amazon — SquarePet Squarely Natural (example SKU, active listing): https://www.amazon.com/SquarePet-Squarely-Natural-Turkey-4-4lbs/dp/B0891FL8GC
- Chewy — SquarePet Squarely Natural (active listing): https://www.chewy.com/squarepet-squarely-natural-turkey/product-questions/323357
- Justia Trademarks (record pages 403'd to automated fetch; cited as recommended manual source): https://trademarks.justia.com/
- uspto.report (mirror; 403'd to automated fetch): https://uspto.report/TM/