Alishia is a Partner of Seiter IP. She has been part of the Seiter team since August 2020 and has contributed tremendously to the growth of the firm and its clients, with her innovative marketing and business development ideas. With all her positive contributions, she became a partner in 2023. Alishia is known for wearing many hats throughout her career, all of which have been deeply rooted in helping the people around her. She has a deep passion for business development and works in areas of pricing, sales, channel management, go-to-market strategy, commercial productivity, and business strategy.
Alishia Frändén
Partner & Business Development Manager | Seiter IP
Seiter IP Consultants LLP is a boutique IP consultancy firm, strategically located in Singapore. They provide an array of IP services, including the protection of trademarks, designs, copyright and patents; licensing services; franchising services; developing IP strategies; and IP portfolio management services in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
Seiter IP serves clients from diverse industries, including multinational corporations, individual entrepreneurs, small businesses, established and new brand owners, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in a variety of fields.
Alishia Frändén is a Partner & Business Development Manager at Seiter IP. She joined the firm in 2020 and has a variety of responsibilities with the firm, including managing the IP docket of over 2,000 trademarks. When Alishia first joined Seiter IP, she began working with another IP docketing system that is designed to manage patents. She found the system to be fairly straightforward and she learned to effectively use the system to update all matters. She appreciated that the system automatically collected information from the USPTO, but for her international matters, all entries had to be made manually.
Deciding to Adopt Better Technology for Law Firm Efficiency
Alishia was already familiar with Alt Legal and decided to visit the Alt Legal booth at the INTA Annual Meeting to learn more and get a demo. Her reaction said it all: “OMG, this is so much easier!” Alishia appreciated Alt Legal’s advanced automation: it automatically adds USPTO matters and updates data. Plus, it automatically checks for updates on international matters, calculating renewal and use deadlines in over 180 jurisdictions. She was impressed by how user-friendly the software is and imagined there would be an enormous benefit from having Alt Legal at Seiter IP. Upon her return from INTA, Alishia met with the managing partner and explained how Alt Legal would help Seiter IP automate tasks and avoid spending unnecessary time on repetitive, manual data entry, freeing the team up to further scale the business.
“I work with a time sheet, so I know how many hours I spend on certain tasks. With my prior IP docketing system, I was spending almost 30 hours per month, and it was a big part of my day to go through emails. Since switching to Alt Legal, I see that it saves me so much time. I’m now spending less than 10 hours a month on docketing and I can use the extra 20 hours of time each month to do more important things, which is great.”
While the partners initially resisted moving to a new IP docketing system, Alishia persuaded Seiter IP partners to switch to Alt Legal, and the firm couldn’t be happier with their decision.
Getting Started with Alt Legal was Easy
The Seiter IP partners were hesitant to switch to a new docketing system because of the time, expense, and potential data loss involved, not to mention the time it takes to get used to a new IP docketing system. These worries were quickly alleviated once the Seiter IP team saw how quickly they were up and running in Alt Legal.
“We had no issues at all migrating to Alt Legal. It was very fast, and the Alt Legal Support Team kept us updated along the way. We had a few new applications to add, and when I tried to add them to Alt Legal, they were already in there. I wasn’t sure if one of the partners had added them, but I soon realized that they were added automatically!”
For a period of time, the Seiter IP team was using Alt Legal but keeping its prior IP docketing system as a backup, but they soon realized that Alt Legal was accurate and up-to-date, reliably pulling all new USPTO matter information and deadlines and calculating international use and renewal deadlines. Alishia also worked with Alt Legal’s helpful Support Team to set up a series of custom reminders for maintenance and renewals to ensure they don’t miss any deadlines.
“We had all of our deadlines imported into Alt Legal, deleting them as we went along. But we don’t need this extra step anymore because I can see that Alt Legal automates everything. We don’t have to rely on what we migrated; we rely on the data that Alt Legal provides in real time.”
The team asked for two training sessions, which helped everyone feel comfortable using the system. Alishia and the Seiter IP team were very pleased to be fully set up in Alt Legal in such a short time. They love that they can trust that Alt Legal provides accurate, up-to-date information on all of their international and US matters.
“For me personally, I was up-and-running straight away. I found Alt Legal to be very intuitive and easy to navigate. I spent maybe 1-2 days learning to use the system and checking help features.”
They were also thrilled to see Alt Legal’s commitment to innovation as two very useful and helpful software updates were released just after Seiter IP began using Alt Legal.
“Alt Legal just added a new search bar, which is really great. Also, Alt Legal added a calendar so that when I schedule an entry, I can determine which day it falls on. These features make things easy.”
Seiter IP’s Initial Impressions of Alt Legal
Once Alishia and the Seiter IP team began using Alt Legal, they immediately noticed a significant improvement in their processes: Alt Legal’s advanced automation is worlds better compared with their prior IP docketing system. Many IP docketing software companies define “automation” differently, and while Seiter IP’s prior docketing system did have many automated features, Alt Legal immediately stood out as having superior automation capabilities.
Alishia identified many ways that Alt Legal provides superior automation and advanced features that were not available with their prior IP docketing system. Unlike their previous system, Alt Legal:
- Automatically clears deadlines – Alishia noted that Seiter IP’s prior IP docketing system required that deadlines be manually checked off.
“Our calendar was always red because there were so many deadlines to clear off. It was overwhelming. But with Alt Legal we don’t have that problem anymore!”
- Automatically pulls international data – Seiter IP’s prior docketing system required a partner to manually enter all international data because it was simply too complex and high-risk to have anyone else enter this data. Alt Legal solves this problem by connecting to three different data sources to retrieve trademark data from over 180+ global IP offices and automatically calculating use and renewal deadlines for global trademark matters.
“With my prior IP docketing system, there was no option to add international registration numbers like I can with Alt Legal. Plus, Alt Legal pulls in all USPTO matter details and dates in real time.”
- Easily produces presentable reports – Alishia finds running and exporting reports on Alt Legal to be incredibly easy and straightforward. Seiter IP’s prior docketing system allowed reports to be exported to Excel, but it arrived in .csv format, requiring a lot of formatting before it was presentable.
- Sends daily email docket updates – Alishia appreciates Alt Legal’s customizable, individualized daily docket email updates. Seiter IP’s prior IP docketing system required her to login to fully check the status of her matters.
“Alt Legal’s daily emails are especially helpful if I’m out and about on my phone. I can see directly from the email what’s happening with the docket. I like that I can see all matter information, including the owner, client, and international or national registration number.”
- Provides unlimited access to all users – With Seiter IP’s prior docketing system, the firm paid per seat, so Alishia was sharing login information with one of the partners. It was simply too expensive to purchase a separate login, even though this posed a security risk and made it impossible to identify who might be responsible for any errors in the system. With Alt Legal’s free and unlimited user access for both internal and external users, all users have their own login credentials.
“With Alt Legal, now I have my own login information. It provides peace of mind. Plus it’s easy to create additional logins if we add new team members to the firm.”
- Integrates with USPTO Trademark Center for easy filing – Seiter IP’s prior docketing system did not connect to the USPTO Trademark Center to facilitate new application filings. Alishia is very excited to try Alt Legal’s USPTO filing forms and Trademark Center integration. Alt Legal provides client-oriented forms to make collecting new application information easy. Simply review the information submitted from the client, make any corrections, and transmit the data to the USPTO Trademark Center to file.
Alt Legal is Facilitating Growth for Seiter IP’s International Portfolio
Because Alt Legal had introduced such an advanced level of automation to Seiter IP, Alishia and other team members are already seeing a big difference when it comes to their workflows. Alishia has found that Alt Legal is saving her at least 20 hours a month, allowing her to devote her time to more meaningful business development activities that will help Seiter IP grow their client base and gain more business from their existing clients. See the math and learn more about how Alt Legal can help you save time and money: How Automated IP Docketing Can Improve Your ROI
Not only is Alt Legal an incredibly user-friendly system, but it is also sophisticated and capable of handling the largest, most diverse trademark dockets with ease and accuracy. Alt Legal’s advanced and reliable automation sets it apart from other IP docketing systems, allowing organizations to focus less on manual, time-consuming docketing tasks and more on substantive legal work and business development opportunities. Alishia and her partners have been thoroughly satisfied with Alt Legal and give it the highest accolades, “Alt Legal is really good! It’s so easy to use and I’ve heard nothing negative about it!”
