Information About Protecting Trademarks
A trademark or servicemark typically is any word, name, slogan, symbol, design or device used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods or services and to distinguish them from goods or services of others. Rights in a trademark or servicemark are acquired by use of the mark in commerce to designate a product or service or by filing a federal trademark or servicemark application in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office before the mark is actually used based on a bona fide intent to use the mark in commerce.
Before a trademark application is prepared and filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a complete and thorough search should be conducted to determine if the mark is registerable. Such a search is not required, but I recommend that one be done before you invest money, effort and goodwill in promoting a mark only to later discover that the mark is not registerable. A thorough search, beyond only the federally registered marks in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is necessary because a mark cannot be federally registered if it so resembles a mark registered in the Patent and Trademark Office or if it so resembles another mark, company name or tradename, even if not registered, as to be likely to cause confusion. Thus, it is not only federally registered marks that should be considered before deciding to use and register a new name.
Relatively inexpensive searches are often advertised, but such searches typically involve only a search of federally registered marks and marks pending federal registration. Such a limited search is not sufficient to determine if your mark should be registerable in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A complete search should also include a search of the trademark records of all fifty states, a search of company names in use in all fifty states and a search of trade directories, telephone books and other such sources.
If the search indicates that the mark, or a confusingly similar mark, is not already in use by others, I can promptly prepare an application to federally register your mark.
For more information by mail, email daket@verizon.net or call 1-301-279-7577
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