On the surface, registering a trademark seems like a rather straightforward process. You have an original name, slogan or logo, pay the fee, and voila! You are registered.
Well, not exactly.
Being “original”, insofar as the Lanham Act and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is concerned, is a dicey proposition. You can’t be too descriptive. You can’t be confusing. In fact, the only surefire way to guarantee a successful registration is to completely make something up. For instance, naming your product “xchgyif” would make you fly through the registration process. But as a practical pointer, you’d likely want a product name your non-Slavic customers could actually pronounce.
The key is finding that fine middle ground where originality meets function.
Being too descriptive: Your trademark idea can’t be “merely descriptive”. For instance, you can’t trademark the term “brown shirt” if you are selling brown shirts (now, if you’ve associated “brown shirt” with, say, kitty litter, you may have a shot – more on that in a later article). Your name must be unique and distinguish your product from someone else’s. Once you find that unique name, the next thing you have to do is find out whether it’s 1) already registered, or 2) already in use in commerce. That’s where a professional trademark search usually comes in handy. Prior use, registered or not, comes in both identical and substantially similar forms. Identical is easy – you simply cannot just rip off someone else’s established mark. Substantial similarity is where the shoulder meets the curb.
Being too confusing: If your mark is too substantially similar to an already existing mark, you run the risk of rejection by the USPTO. Minor differences tend to be insufficient to pass muster. As an example, simply changing the name of your business by one letter is not enough to establish sufficient originality (for instance, the business name for a collegiate apparel store such as “fanz zone” cannot be registered because “fan zone” already is). It takes more than a single letter to ward off the evil spirits of substantial similarity. This can also apply to drawings (which is the USPTO’s fancy lingo for a logo), but less so than word-based marks. Making a drawing unique is much easier as variations can be relatively infinite. Color and design differences figure into the equation when discussing the originality of drawings.
As a practical business matter, it is important to ensure that your trademark, whether it’s a name or a drawing, is both nondescript and non-confusing. For some very good and economic reasons, every new business should take time to establish a legally workable business name or brand name. Prudently, this determination should be made before major resources are expended creating a brand that can later be legally pulled out from under your business. It would be quite the financial setback to have spent millions of dollars (or euros) creating goodwill and positive name recognition to only have a federal court issue an injunction and order the payment of damages for your past use of another entity’s mark. Not only are you out of your mark, you are also likely out substantial sums in legal fees.
Trademark applications can seem daunting. It is the next challenging step when you have had a great idea or your company has developed a great new product and you want to trademark it. Trying to get the application through and the trademark successfully registered can be a little nerve wracking when you are trying to protect your idea. Taking measures to fill out the trademark application properly so it is approved the first time means you can stop worrying sooner.
The short answer to this question is that a trademark can become a brand. Even if you’re business is local, a brand name is important not only from a marketing but also a customer perception basis.
In every country now it seems to get some over strict rules for corporate sector. For developing countries like for India, China, Singapore and many more that involves in export and import are compulsory to follow all types of business rules and regulations. These countries comprise wide range of corporate sectors offer different types of products and services to the world market. In this all world leading companies usually hire the services of business law companies that facilitate all types paper work and other business legal solutions to these business houses at the international level. There are many business companies that offer all these types business law services to corporate sector of different level. Among the different services trademark search India, federal trademark search, company registrations, company formations, company names search, trademark monitor, paralegal trademark, copyright registration, PCT filling in India, patent trademark attorney, brand registration, logo registration, trademark infringement and many more. All these services involve huge paper work that should be submitted to particular law office scattered to the different sections of the globe and it is very easy for these business law companies to come over with these legal services that must be follow by different business houses world wide.
Identity theft often happens in the business world. It occurs when someone makes a shoddy knockoff of your product and tries to pass their goods off as if they were yours.
A trademark journal is a record that contains details of trademark application that are granted or that are awaiting for examination or that are opposed. Every trademark office in several parts of the country publishes these journals. The journal gives an overview to the user to help him know if his mark is distinctive. It will also help the proprietor or the trademark attorney to know if his/her mark is opposed by a third person by simply viewing the trademark journal.
Your business, company and domain name don’t give you rights which are proprietary. This means that you don’t have the right to license or sell a trademark.
After you’ve applied for your trademark, there will be a waiting period of approximately 18 months before your name is actually registered with the United States Patent & Trademark Office (herein referred to as the USPTO). Until then, it will be listed as “Pending.” Sometimes there are hold-ups; the USPTO may not allow you to use the name you’ve chosen to apply for because there is a similar name already trademarked. In this case, you will receive an “office action”, which is a notification from the USPTO. If you do receive an office action, it might be due to the USPTO simply needing more information in order to complete your trademark application. However, it also may be because your name is blocked by another name, which is the worst case scenario, and another reason why it is incredibly important to purchase comprehensive research before you file for your name!
So, you finally settled on the perfect name for your product or service – it describes the business without being overly descriptive, it tells your customers exactly what you want them to know and it’s catchy. That’s fantastic! Finding just the right name is vitally important to the success of any product line or service.
