Alt Legal, the cloud-based, intellectual-property docketing software company, has acquired MarkTend, a trademark docketing and monitoring software, for an undisclosed price.

As a result of the acquisition, MarkTend will shut down its docketing software business and its customers will be transitioned to Alt Legal.

Alt Legal will continue to operate MarkTend’s trademark monitoring service and may eventually integrate it with the Alt Legal application.

This is the first acquisition for the six-year-old, New York City-based company, which has grown without venture financing, except for a $40,000 seed round in 2014.

MarkTend, based in Sacramento, Calif., was started in 2008 by Michael Kassing, a lawyer and developer, and Steve Johnson, a developer, to simplify the daily tasks of trademark maintenance. The pair also develop products for insurers through their site insured.io and will continue to run that.

Nehal Madhani, Alt Legal founder and CEO, told me that he reached out to MarkTend when he saw opportunities to improve docketing for their customers. The timing of his approach aligned with Kassing’s and Johnson’s desire to focus more on insured.io.

One difference between the two products is pricing, with Alt Legal charging by tiers and MarkTend charging by the case. That means that some customers will see their pricing go down while others will see an increase.

MarkTend customers will continue to receive the monitoring service at no extra cost. Madhani said he may eventually offer it to Alt Legal customers as a separate service and maybe over time incorporate it into the Alt Legal platform.

“As a company whose mission is to provide automated and affordable trademark docketing software, we’re thrilled to have found a partner whose mission aligns with ours,” Madhani said. “We look forward to providing Alt Legal’s docketing software to MarkTend’s customers.”

Alt Legal User Conference Planned

In other Alt Legal news, the company has scheduled its first user conference. The three-day Alt Legal Connect 2020 will be held March 22-24, 2020, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The conference will be designed for trademark lawyers in solo and boutique practices. It will feature two tracks, one focused on trademark law and the other on the business of trademark law.

According to the event page:

“Alt Legal Connect will bring together 300 of the best, brightest, and most forward-thinking trademark professionals from leading boutiques, solo firms, and in-house legal departments for three days of networking, content, and more.”

Registration for the conference is $550 for Alt Legal customers, $600 for early-bird registration until Dec. 2, and then $800.

New Sales Director

Alt Legal also recently hired a new national sales director. Lauren Amanda Adler was most recently director of sales, eastern region, for the current-awareness platform Manzama and previously held sales executive positions at contract due diligence company Street Diligence, Legal Fee Advisors, and Practical Law Company. A graduate of Cornell Law School, she started her career as an associate at Proskauer Rose.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.