Now that you picked up out the perfect name for your brand, designed your logo and mapped out your company, now what? Are you ready to take over the business world? But, wait do you know if you can legally use that name or logo you picked out? How do you protect it and how do you make sure some else is not already using it?
Trademarks are used to protect the rights of owners of a company that will keep others from using similar names or competing products and services. Trademarks also protect consumers by preventing other companies from using names or marks of others and consumers can be confident of who they are buying from.
A trademark protects your “intellectual property” — valuable company assets that are not tangible, but are the result of brainwork and creativity. There are three main ways to protect intellectual property:
• Through trademarks for names, logos and other identifiers of products or service marks for services. These are relatively easy and not too costly to obtain.
• Through copyrights for creative works, whether books, music, art or software. These are very easy and inexpensive to obtain.
• Through patents for inventions. These are difficult and expensive to obtain.
Trademarks are more important than ever, especially if you’re investing a lot of time and money in a brand name or intend to do business in more than one state. Before the invention of the Internet, you may have happily and legally done business in your community without being confused with a business using the same name in another state. Now if one of you puts up a website, customers won’t know who’s who.
When you apply for a trademark, you indicate what category or categories of products or services you’re going to use it for. You only get protection for the type of use you indicate.
There are limits to what you can trademark. A name has to be “distinctive” and not merely “descriptive.”
Once you have a trademark, you have to protect it. If a company doesn’t protect their trademark, they can lose it.
You can start to acquire rights in a name without registering with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, just by putting the symbols “TM” (for products) or “SM” (for services). But registering the mark gives you more protection. Once you’ve registered with the USPTO, you can use the symbol “R” in a circle.
To get started on your trademark search, begin at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website (www.uspto.gov, under “Trademarks”). That helps you eliminate a number of names right from the start. But since companies can acquire rights without registering — if you’re investing a lot of money in a name — you may want to hire a trademark attorney or search firm to do a more complete search for you.
Again, make sure that if you are planning on investing time and money to your business it is important to look into trademark availabilities for your name and products.
Have you tried to trademark your name yet? Send me a tweet @lorenridinger.
