New businesses often have limited overhead and evaluating the pros and cons of registering your trademark at an early stage is important.
The Good News is that the trademark system is use based. This means that as soon as you create and start using a brand name or trademark in commerce for a legitimate business, you begin to get credit for using the trademark. This also means that you automatically start establishing rights to exclusive use of your trademark in the area where you are doing business… so long as you have a valid trademark. For example, if you start brewing beer in your garage and sell it to folks in your town then you begin to establish a right to exclusive use of the unregistered trademark that you use on your beer, in your town where you are operating and distributing.
Obviously, many businesses are looking to grow and expand their customer base and distribution areas and this is where a key benefit of registering a trademark comes into play. One of the key benefits of registering a Trademark with the USPTO is that the owner of a registered trademark is granted exclusive rights to use the trademark nationally. Exclusive use of a trademark nationally, verses regional use, is a powerful tool for a growing business. Back to the brewery example, as a beer brand grows… the rights to use the registered trademark are already reserved for the trademark owner’s exclusive use, anywhere in the country.
In addition to the obvious benefit of being able to use a trademark nationally to help grow the brand, there are also other strategic benefits to owning a registered trademark. Owning a registered trademark blocks other businesses, who sell similar goods and services, from registering trademarks that are too similar to yours. This can be a powerful tool in protecting a brand and market share.
See also: USPTO site for more trademark basics at –> http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#Basic001; www.kasterlegal.com
BY: Vanessa Kaster, Esq., LL.M.
For more personalized legal services contact me at vk@kasterlegal.com
How you NAME your business is important
July 27, 2010
Before you fall in love with the name of your new business, run three simple searches (on GOOGLE, GO DADDY and the USPTO) to see if anyone else is using or has trademarked a similar business name already.
How do you do this? EASY: 1) run a GOOGLE search to see if anyone else is using the same name for their business, 2) search on www.godaddy.com to see if the domain for your biz name is available and 3) search the USPTO/US trademark office records to see if anyone else has already registered a trademark for the same name. Follow the steps listed below to search US trademark office (USPTO) records.
How to run a basic USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) search to see if the name of your new business is already being used by someone else.
- Click – http://tess2.uspto.gov/
- Then Click on – New User Form Search (Basic)
- Enter your business name in the ‘Search Term’ field
- Click – ‘Submit Query’
- To be really comprehensive, Back-page and search the key words in your business name separately
IF and WHEN your business comes to fruition, takes off and becomes successful… you might want to expand, franchise, trademark your business name and or sell your company. Having a good business name, that you own the rights to can be a profitable asset.
See also: http://t.co/Xj6wpok on using your NAME as a brand and trademark (Paul Revere was one of the first); www.kasterlegal.com
BY: Vanessa Kaster, Esq., LL.M.
For more personalized legal services contact me at vk@kasterlegal.com
