Philadelphia Inquirer: “What Trademarks Say About Economy“:
When trademark filings are up, it’s a good sign that the economy is humming along. But if they go up too fast, you may have a bubble on your hands. Or if they start to tail off after years of modest growth, there might be a recession in the offing.
“We are seeing applications now in 2008 going down, but they are dropping less sharply and fiercely than they did in late 2001,” during the last recession, said Gundersen.
In 2000, trademark filings hit what was then an all-time high of 287,000, but then fell off more than 25 percent the following year, according to Gundersen’s analysis. It wasn’t until 2007 that they finally passed the record set in 2000 by topping 300,000