How To Register Your Brand Name
- Registering your brand name as a trademark is a simple 3-stride process.
- You tin annals your brand name with the USPTO to protect your intellectual property from misuse.
- It is non immediately necessary to secure a trademark, though it could do good your make.
- This article is for pocket-sized business owners who are set up to annals and trademark their make name or wondering whether they should.
Registering a trademark for your visitor is a big step that helps you lot protect your brand identity from misuse or theft. Registering a trademark is a fairly straightforward process that you lot can complete in merely a few easy steps.
This guide will walk you through each step needed to annals and trademark your make proper noun, and reply some often asked questions nigh registering your trademark.
What is a trademark?
According to the U.s. Patent and Trademark Part (USPTO), a trademark is "a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of the others."
Steps to trademark your company name
Trademarking your company's name is non equally simple as filing for an LLC and may take more time than you imagine.
1. Search
Start, you need to search the federal database to ensure the name you desire to trademark isn't already protected equally a trademark. You can practice this with the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search System, also known every bit TESS. Y'all should search not but for the name you want, but for similar names. Your registration could be denied if the name is too similar to a name already registered within the same class.
While this sounds straightforward, it can be complex. Iguana Ice Foam and Iguana'due south Water ice Cream might be too similar, for example. It can too mean that a registered trademark just looks or sounds similar your mark or that the meanings are similar.
2. Apply
In one case you've searched and cleared the proper name you desire to trademark, it'southward time to prepare your trademark application. You lot tin can file for a proper noun already in commercial use or with an intent to use the proper name in the time to come.
The trademark application itself has ten components:
- The name and accost of the applicant
- The citizenship and legal entity of the applicant
- A name and address for future correspondence (this does non accept to exist the same as the proper name of the bidder)
- A drawing of the desired mark (if yous are just applying for the proper name and don't want to include a design element, you but type in the name)
- A thorough description of the mark
- A specific list of services or goods covered by the trademark awarding
- The course of services or goods
- An example of the mark in use every bit well as the appointment it was outset used
- A dated signature from you or an authorized representative
- The advisable fee for the type and number of classes included on the awarding
3. File
In one case you have completed the application, y'all have two filing options: TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard. The Plus pick is less expensive and more streamlined; information technology likewise has a lower rate of rejections. Still, if you need to create a custom description of your services or goods that is not available in the preset list Plus provides, the risk associated with the Standard option may be more beneficial for your situation.
One time you've submitted your application, you will receive a confirmation receipt from the USPTO and a serial number that you can apply to check the status of your awarding in the Trademark Condition & Document Retrieval (TSDR) portal.
Trademark FAQs
What is the divergence betwixt a trade name, trademark and service mark?
A trademark protects goods, and a service marker does the aforementioned for services. Yet, the word "trademark" is sometimes used for both types of marks. Both are designed to limit the ability of competitors to mislead consumers with faux claims of where a production or service originates.
A trade name is what is used in place of the official business name. This is oft indicated on paperwork with the phrase "doing business organisation as" (DBA). Information technology is used when the business organisation name is considered too lengthy or when the desired name was besides close to one that already had a trademark or service mark. (Notation that a trade proper noun does not indicate the legally responsible entity behind the service or production.)
Should y'all trademark your visitor name?
It isn't necessary to register your mark to receive protectable rights. In the Usa, y'all are granted "mutual-constabulary rights" to a mark simply past using information technology as office of your business organization. This ways that you could brainstorm using it and enforce your ownership of it through documentation of being the get-go to employ it commercially. Yet, there are limitations on your rights with a mutual-police force trademark.
Registering for a federal trademark has a number of advantages. Almost chiefly, information technology gives you legal ownership of the marking and the sectional rights to utilise it anywhere in the nation as it relates to the goods or services yous listed during registration. Common-police rights are limited to the immediate geographic area in which yous are operating, and registering the name with your state only protects your rights inside the borders of that state.
When you register your mark with the USPTO, at that place will exist a public notice stating your ownership, and it will be listed in the online database. With a federally registered trademark, yous also have the option to register your trademark with the U.S. Community and Edge Protection to keep strange goods from being imported with the same proper name. You lot'll besides be able to use the federal symbol ® instead of the less enforceable ™ mark.
The proper noun of your company is the primary fashion you present it to the world. Imagine someone else using your company'due south name to make offers that are antonymous to the mission and values of your business organisation. If you want to afford your business organisation the maximum legal protection, y'all will need a trademark.
When you file for a trademark, it only covers one nomenclature. Each boosted nomenclature must be noted in the application and will incur an boosted charge. There are 45 classes to exist considered. For example, if your business produces vehicles, you would desire a Form 12 trademark. If you additionally wanted to sell wearable with the proper noun of the same visitor on it, you would need to also have a Grade 25 trademark. Consider exactly how you lot will exist using the name to make up one's mind which class or classes you should list it under.
Who should trademark their business organization name?
If your business has a unique name, it tin be trademarked as long as it isn't too similar to some other name that has already received a trademark. For example, if the name is too vague, similar The Water ice Cream Shop, information technology is unlikely to be eligible for a trademark. Something like Iguana Ice Cream would exist more probable to receive a trademark, since it joins common words in a unique way.
It is besides important to consider the geographical area you volition be serving. The common-law trademark protection that yous automatically receive by using the proper noun is restricted to your firsthand geographic area. If your business organization serves multiple states, y'all'll definitely want to apply for a trademark to protect your concern.
If you lot accept several product lines within your business organization that also have unique names, you may want to trademark those too. For example, Ford is a trademark of the Ford Motor Company, which besides has trademarks for lines of vehicles such as the F-150, Mustang, Ranger and Explorer.
Should I get a trademark or LLC first?
Whether you should annals for a trademark or an LLC first largely depends on your business organization goals.
A limited liability company (LLC) is a business structure classification within the U.South. that describes a private limited visitor. It is usually issued past the state in which the company operates, although you tin can receive an LLC from any state. An LLC registration usually takes less than a twenty-four hours to process, while a trademark takes an average of iii months.
If you want to begin operating immediately, it makes sense to register for the LLC commencement. If you take plenty of atomic number 82 time and are more interested in securing your federal rights to the name before you put it out into the earth, out of fear that information technology may be co-opted by someone else, and then it makes more sense to utilise for the trademark first.
Does your business need a trademark registration right away?
Your business does non need to register for a trademark right away.
Typically you need to be able to testify "use in commerce" when registering for a mark, which means that you should be able to evidence it was existence used before you could register it. However, at that place is the pick to apply for an intent-to-utilise (ITU) trademark.
If you keep with an ITU trademark, you lot still accept to demonstrate your utilise of the mark in commerce by completing the documentation and paying the boosted fees within the allotted timeframe prior to the mark's registration.
There are only iii periods inside which you can merits use in commerce:
- Prior to blessing for publication
- Inside six months of the issuance of the notice of allowance (NOA)
- Within the fourth dimension granted past an extension
You can found use in commerce in several unlike ways, including the following:
- Placing the marker on your goods sold or your website for goods sold
- Using the mark in association with services existence sold
At that place are iii types of commerce under federal law:
- Foreign commerce
- Territorial
- Interstate
What is not typically adequate is intrastate commerce, meaning business that is limited to the borders of a unmarried country.
If your business can't yet prove you lot are using the trademark in commerce, or if you lot won't be able to bear witness it within the confines of the ICU process, at that place is no reason to apply for the trademark first.
If I register a business proper name, do I need to annals a trademark?
Registering a business name is typically done at the country level and does not provide federal protection. If y'all are only going to provide services or products inside that state, there is no reason to annals for a trademark. If you are offering products and services in multiple states and want federal protection for the name of your business, though, you would need to register for a trademark.
How can you tell if someone else already has rights to a mark?
TESS makes it piece of cake to search the federal database of trademarks in various means. The "bones word mark search" allows you to search names, words and phrases that have received a federal trademark.
The "word and/or design mark search" allows you lot to use either a pattern or words or a combination of the two to search the database. Withal, you will likely need to know the design codes to do this effectively.
There is also the option to browse the directory or individual fields within the database. If you aren't sure exactly what might have been trademarked only y'all know a general appointment, you lot tin can search by registration or publication date.
If your registration is accepted, how long is that registration valid?
A trademark registration is valid for as long as you are willing to maintain it. Once a trademark is issued, information technology does not expire equally long as it remains in utilise for the registered purpose. You meet, a trademark does non grant you ownership of the discussion, phrase or image; information technology gives you the right to that discussion, phrase or image every bit it is used to place the services or goods listed in the registration.
However, using it isn't quite enough. You must give the USPTO proof that the trademark has remained in utilize by filing a Section 8 proclamation betwixt the fifth and sixth anniversary of the registration. This is a simple sworn statement.
Upon the registration's 10th ceremony, bodily proof is required. This can be an epitome of your product or service using the trademark. Y'all must do this every 10 years.
Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15762-how-to-register-trademark-brand-name.html
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