If not filed within the grace period, the registration lapses forever, without the option for reinstatement. For Texas companies operating in the energy, food, and professional services industries, all businesses where reputation is earned year in and year out, a cancelled trademark registration leaves an opening in brand protection that competitors in those industries will see and exploit. A Houston-based energy services firm with a lapsed trademark may find a competitor filing for an identical name in the same class of services in Oklahoma during the same quarter. A Texas food manufacturer whose trademark lapses may find a national consumer goods company filing for the same mark in Class 029 or Class 030 before the Texas company can renew the mark. In Texas, trademark renewal is an opportunity to not only avoid cancellation, but also to file a combined Section 8 and Section 15 Declaration of Incontestability. Five years of continuous use after registration, a Texas trademark owner can request incontestable status, which greatly narrows the avenues for challenge to the mark’s validity. In the busy federal courts of Dallas, Houston and Austin in Texas, an incontestable mark is a markedly better legal asset than a non-incontestable mark. united states trademark registrations and law (USTML) records all maintenance deadlines for Section 8, Section 9, and Section 15 for Texas clients, provides a Texas-compliant specimen, and files all documents on time.