What, When, & How To Trademarks

Heard about trademarks and now wondering what they are, when you should use them, and how to get your trademark registered for your business?

Below, this training will give you some basic knowledge on trademarks to prepare to protect your business. 

DISCLAIMER: This blog is only for educational purposes to direct you towards the right resources in your business journey to aid in further decisions of accomplishing your business-building goals. It is not business, financial, or legal advice. I do highly recommend speaking with a licensed attorney in your state to make sure you are getting guidance specific to your unique situation.

What Is A Trademark?

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is any word, phrase, symbol, design, or combination of these things that identifies your goods or services. It’s how customers recognize you in the marketplace and distinguish you from your competitors.

I highly recommend reading the USPTO blog article on what a trademark is to gain more clarity.

Types of Trademarks

There are two types of trademarks.

1. Common-Law associated with symbol  ™ or SM
2. Registered associated with symbol ®

The first is common law trademarks. They are valid upon creation (meaning as soon as you create what you are trademarking) even though they are not registered. This mark does not provide lawful protection from others having the ability to use the mark.

The second is a registered trademark.
This type of trademark is broken down into three forms:

1. State Registered
2. Federally Registered
3. Internationally Registered

A state-registered trademark is registered with your state just like you would do when registering an LLC. This type of trademark only gives you rights within your state by the judicial system.

If you are an online business owner (as most of Passion Profit CEO clients are) conducting business beyond your state boundaries, the state-registered trademark would not effectively protect your mark from others using the mark in other states.

A federally-registered trademark is one that protects your mark fully within the entire country with statutory law by the legislature.  This type of trademark protects your mark forever but will need maintenance documents & fees filed once you reach 5 years.

Internationally registered trademarks, of course, mean worldwide. However, there is no true international registry. In this case, you would have to register your trademark in multiple countries through the Madrid Protocol. 

Search Of Trademark

Before registering a trademark, you will want to do an in-depth search.

Trademarks are given “priority of use”. This means the first person using the mark may have the right to prevent others from using it.

To conduct your search you will want to see if your mark is being used in the following different ways:

1. Secretary of State website for your particular state
2. USPTO – U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Database
3.  TESS – Trademark Electronic Search System
4. Online search engines (Google, etc)
5. Domain registries (Bluehost, etc)
6. Social media (Facebook, etc)

How To Register Your Trademark

After you have done your search and found no competing trades with similar marks then it’s time to register your mark.

This process has an application period & takes typically about 1 year to complete.

Next, we advise consulting with a business attorney about trademark registration. They are trained & will be able to conduct a more extensive search for you. Thus helping your application get approved instead of rejected wasting your time & money.

However, you can apply to register your trademark yourself on your Secretary of State website (State Registered) & on the USPTO website (Federally Registered).

Registering both state & federally will limit confusion on whether or not your mark is trademarked allowing it to come up for others in future searches.

Benefits Of Registered Trademarks

Below you will find 6 benefits directly stated by USPTO in their “WHY REGISTER YOUR TRADEMARK?” article:

• The mark will show in the USPTO of registered and pending trademarks. This provides public notice to anyone searching for similar trademarks. When searching your registered trademark, the goods and services on your registration, the date you applied for trademark registration, and the date your trademark was registered.
• There is a legal presumption that you own the trademark and have the right to use it. In federal court, your registration certificate proves ownership, eliminating the need for copious amounts of evidence.
• Can use your registration as a basis for filing for trademark protection in foreign countries.
• Right to bring a lawsuit concerning the trademark in federal court.
• Once registration is complete you can use the federal trademark registration symbol, ®, to dictate registration. This may help deter others from using your trademark or one too similar to yours.
• Record your registration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They can stop the importation of goods with an infringing trademark.

The main & overall benefit of registering a trademark is to prevent others from confusing their business with yours and to have the upper hand in dealing with such matters.

When To Trademark?

Here at Passion Profit CEO, LLC we advise registering a trademark when you can check all 4 categories below.

1.  Your business is making money & can afford the expense of the trademark and its maintenance fees.
2.  Your mark is final & there will be no future rebranding.
3.  You can ongoingly prove that you are using your trademark & can provide evidence to support such.
4.  Your intention is to stop infringement on your trademark meaning you will press charges (create legal action) when others do business using a mark(s) wrongfully creating confusion of association of their business with yours.  (Thus the reason #1 is so important.)

Conclusion Of Trademarks

A trademark is more of an advanced legal strategy in your business plan and isn’t typically needed for our startup students & clients.

Learn more about trademarks by speaking to your attorney & by visiting resources we have listed above such as:

• USPTO.GOV
• TESS 
• Secretary of State Websites

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