Trademark

Trademark registration gives you exclusive rights to your name, or logo, protects your name, and prevents others from using the same or similar mark.  This inherently helps build your brand name and recognition.  

What is Trademark?

There are 3 intellectual property rights: trademark, copyright, and patent.

Trademark protects the BRAND NAME or LOGO of the products or services that you sell.

You can trademark any word, name, symbol, design, device, or any combination used to identify products or services and distinguishes the sources of the services or goods back to the owner.

Trademark are commonly used to protect names, designs, logos, slogans, symbols, colors, packaging, containers, or any other marks used by businesses to identify the sources of their goods and services.

A trademark owner has the exclusive rights to use its mark to identify its product or service.

This allows a trademark owner to prevent others from using the same or confusingly similar mark to identify the same or similar products or services.

 

Why Should I Trademark?

Registering your Trademark has the following 8 benefits:

1. Legal presumption that you are the owner of the mark.
2. Legal presumption that you have the exclusive right to use the mark.
3. Puts public on notice of ownership of the mark.
4. Your mark will be listed on USPTO’s website which means that others can find your marks when searching the database to see if their mark is available. The existence of your mark in the database can help others avoid a mark that is similar to yours.
5. Gives you the ability to record registration with U.S. Customs & Border Protection. This will prevent importing of marks that could infringe your mark.
6. Right to bring legal action concerning mark in federal court.
7. You will have the ability to use trademark registration as basis for foreign filing. This will allow you to get worldwide protection should your business expand.
8. Able to use federal trademark registration symbol ®. This symbol indicates that you have federally registered your trademark with the USPSTO. It puts the public on notice that your mark is registered and that you have nation-wide rights in it.

 

How Long Does Trademark Last?

Registered Trademarks are protected for a period of 10 years.

Trademarks can be renewed indefinitely.

 

Do I Need to Trademark Even If I Have a Registered Business name?

A registered business name (such as a registered LLC), a domain name, and a trademark differ.

Use of a business name does not necessarily qualify as trademark use. If no other company has already applied for that exact name in that state and you comply with all other requirements, the state likely would issue you a certificate and authorize you to do business under that name.

However, a state’s authorization to form a business with a particular name does not also give you trademark rights and other parties could later try to prevent your use of the business name if they believe a likelihood of confusion exists with their trademarks.

Registration of a domain name with a domain name registrar does not give you any trademark rights. For example, even if you register a certain domain name with a domain name registrar, you could later be required to surrender it if it infringes someone else’s trademark rights.

 

If you would like a free consultation to inquire about or to register your trademark, contact us.