Every month an application that looks like your name gets published somewhere. The date it publishes is the date your clock starts. Miss that date and the cheap option is gone.
Nobody calls you. The registry does not check whether the new applicant is stepping on an earlier right that outranks yours. That part is on the brand owner, and it runs on a fixed calendar.
Here is what the clock actually looks like at four offices most brand owners deal with.
European Union, three months
EUIPO publishes the application in the EUTM Bulletin. From that publication date you have three months to file a notice of opposition. The opposition fee is 320 euro. After the window closes the mark moves on toward registration.
United States, 30 days and extendable
USPTO publishes the application in the Official Gazette for opposition. The notice of opposition is due within 30 days of publication. Extensions of time are available and can stretch the whole period out to 180 days from publication, but you have to request them in writing while the first 30 days are still running.
United Kingdom, two months, three with a notice
UKIPO gives you two months from publication. Those two months become three if you file a notice of threatened opposition, form TM7a, inside the first two months. A fast track opposition costs 125 pounds.
Czech Republic, three months
The Czech Industrial Property Office publishes the application in its bulletin and opposition is due within three months of publication. International registrations that designate Czechia run on the same three month idea from the WIPO gazette.
Why the date is the whole story
Opposing early is cheaper than cancelling a registered mark later. Once the mark is on the register, the conversation turns from an office deadline into a legal dispute with its own costs and its own clock. Most brands that get hurt did not lose the argument. They missed the date.
So a filing is not a finish line. The register keeps moving after your application is accepted. New applications arrive every week, and some of them sit close to your name on purpose.
What to do this month
Find your own mark in the register, then set a watch on the same name. When a lookalike application shows up, you want the alert while the opposition window is still open, not after it shuts.
IP Defender runs 5 AI watch agents across 11 detection layers in 55 markets. You pay for the brand and country combinations you choose, from 6 dollars a month per country, with no annual contract. It watches new filings and flags what resembles your brand. What you do with that alert stays a decision for you and your lawyer.
Compare what monitoring covers before you pick a watch at https://www.ipdefender.eu/en/comparison