Trademark Law and Brand Pro­tec­tion

Being negligent with brand pro­tec­tion can prove costly. There are now numerous law firms that are spe­cial­ized in finding and pe­nal­iz­ing those who are guilty of trademark in­fringe­ment. So before the first un­pleas­ant letter finds its way to you, you should read up on the rules and rights. It’s equally as important for companies to protect their own brand names and therefore prevent any imitators and other trou­ble­some sit­u­a­tions. We explain the most import terms and discuss when and why trademark reg­is­tra­tion is es­pe­cial­ly important for young online companies.

A brand is a dis­tin­guish­able symbol, logo, name, word, or sentence which companies use to set their products or services apart from the rest of the market. It’s most common to see brands com­pris­ing names and a related symbol, but 3D brands, sound trade­marks, and tracer marks are also used. A trademark 'typ­i­cal­ly protects brand names and logos used on good and services'. More can be read here about U.S. Trademark Law. The brand can be thought of as a kind of ad­ver­tise­ment or business card for the company, which it uses to present its products or services on the market. Trade­mark­ing a brand fulfils many functions:

• It helps to dis­tin­guish products and services from others on the market

• It makes their origins clear

• It invokes trust

• It reflects an image

• It stands for in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty

• It’s often as­so­ci­at­ed with quality and guar­an­tees

For companies, the brand is one of the most important means for them to position them­selves on the market and dif­fer­en­ti­ate their products from the com­pe­ti­tion.

The ap­pli­ca­tion form can be filled out online using the Trademark Elec­tron­ic Ap­pli­ca­tion System (TEAS), which you can then send directly to USPTO. There are many different forms to choose from such as TEAS Plus, TEAS Reduced Fee, or TEAS Regular. The former has the lowest filing fee, but also the strictest re­quire­ments: so if you cannot fulfil these, you must choose one of the other two options. Be aware that the filing fee is a pro­cess­ing fee, so your ap­pli­ca­tion could still get rejected and your money won’t be refunded.

You can monitor your ap­pli­ca­tion’s process through the Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) system. It’s crucial that you check in every 3-4 months otherwise you might miss an important filing deadline.

The USPTO must first check whether the minimum filing re­quire­ments have been met, before assigning an ap­pli­ca­tion serial number and for­ward­ing your ap­pli­ca­tion onto an examining attorney. This process could take several months. The examining attorney checks to see if every­thing is up to scratch regarding ap­plic­a­ble rules and fees. A search is performed to see if there are any con­flict­ing trade­marks and then the attorney checks the written ap­pli­ca­tion and image of the brand. If, for some reason, the trademark cannot be reg­is­tered, the examining attorney sends out a letter ex­plain­ing why. This could just be down to errors made while filling out the form. If you receive this letter, you have six months (from its dispatch date) to reply or else the ap­pli­ca­tion will be canceled. If every­thing goes smoothly and your ap­pli­ca­tion is approved, it’ll be released in USPTO’s weekly pub­li­ca­tion, the 'Official Gazette'. The USPTO will also send you in­for­ma­tion con­firm­ing the date of pub­li­ca­tion. Any party who believes that the trademark shouldn’t be reg­is­tered has thirty days to get in touch. If no-one objects, your ap­pli­ca­tion will enter the next stage of the reg­is­tra­tion process, which can take three to four months. Don’t forget to keep mon­i­tor­ing the status. If every­thing is approved, the USPTO will register the trademark and the owner will be sent a cer­tifi­cate of reg­is­tra­tion. This isn’t the end of it though; the owner must continue filing certain main­te­nance documents so that the reg­is­tra­tion stays in place. The whole reg­is­tra­tion process can be found in more detail here.

A brand name is the basis for creating company recog­ni­tion. If customers are already familiar with in­di­vid­ual products or whole product ranges, they can then easily recognize new products in a company’s range thanks to the brand name. Brands convey an image as well as sug­gest­ing quality, almost like a way of making a promise to customers who are already in contact with the company.

But this is all useless if you haven’t of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered your trademark with the USPTO. By trade­mark­ing your brand, you’ll make sure you don’t infringe on any third party rights and also protect your products or services against others misusing your name. Young online companies should also start the trademark ap­pli­ca­tion as quickly as possible. Even if the business fails, the reg­is­tra­tion won’t be in vain since the rights to it can be sold on to another company at a later date.