A trademark can be anything from a name, word, phrase or symbol used to identify the source of products or services. Trademarks can be classified as either registered or unregistered. A registered trademark is one that has been filed and properly processed with the USPTO or other government agency. The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement with USPTO trademark search to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark.
What is a trademark?
A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device that is used to identify the source of products or services and to distinguish them from those manufactured or provided by others.
You may apply for a federal trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A federal registration provides nationwide notice of your claim of ownership of a mark, as well as information about its use in interstate commerce. This notice helps stop others from using your mark without authorization if they do not have rights in it themselves—it can also be useful to help track infringements later on if you end up needing evidence for court proceedings.
If you want to protect your brand throughout all 50 states, you’ll need to register it with each state individually as well; however, this isn’t always necessary depending on what type of business you run and whether or not other companies have already claimed similar trademarks within their own industry (this might happen if two unrelated businesses were both named “Apple”!).
If you want to stop someone from using your company’s trademark, filing for an official trademark can be a good way to do it. An official trademark can refer to two different things: either a mark that is registered with a government trademark registry or a mark that has been recognized by a court as having acquired distinctiveness. A registered mark will prevent unauthorized use of the trademark and make it easier to prove infringement if the mark is infringed in the future.
An unregistered but distinctively used mark may also be considered “official” because it has become well known enough among consumers that no other company could possibly use it without creating confusion among consumers. For example, in 2007, The Coca-Cola Company successfully sued PepsiCo for selling soft drinks called “Surge” because they had previously been selling their own product under this name when they thought no one would notice (they were wrong). This decision was made on the grounds that even though PepsiCo hadn’t actually registered any trademarks at all and wasn’t intending on eventually doing so, there was already too much brand recognition associated with their product name for them not be able to continue using it themselves since doing so would lead people into thinking there was some sort of affiliation between these two companies when there wasn’t – thus preventing confusion among customers who might otherwise think they were buying something from The Coca Cola Company instead of PepsiCo just on account of being confused about which one owns these particular product lines!
A registered trademark is one that has its US trademark application filed and properly processed with the USPTO or other government agency. The USPTO is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which maintains a special section for trademarks. Once you have filed your application, it will be processed by the USPTO and issued a registration certificate if approved.
If you want to save yourself the headache of having to prove that your trademark is valid and not infringing on someone else’s, file for a trademark as soon as you develop the idea for your business. You can file for a trademark before you start using it in any way, whether or not anyone else has used it yet. The USPTO will put an official date on their records of when they received your application (this date will be considered the official filing date). This means that if another company decided to use the same name later on, they would have to prove that they were using it before yours was filed with the USPTO; otherwise, yours would take precedence.
If this sounds like something complicated and time-consuming, don’t worry! You won’t need an attorney—the process is fairly straightforward and only takes about six months once everything goes through all right. Just remember: once it’s registered with the USPTO in accordance with federal law (which happens automatically), no one else can claim ownership over your mark without either paying royalties or challenging its validity in court. *
Trademark infringement occurs when a person or business uses your trademark without your permission.
If you own a federally registered trademark, then you have the right to pursue legal action against anyone who is infringing on that trademark by using it to sell goods or services. You will also be able to recover damages and attorney’s fees if you win in court.
In order for someone to be guilty of trademark infringement, he/she must use an identical or similar mark as yours within the same market area as yours. The two marks must also be similar enough in sight, sound, meaning and association for consumers to be confused about which company makes which product.
The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark; however, this can become complicated if another party owns an unregistered version of the same mark (which is common). In addition, some countries allow only certain people who have been granted exclusive rights over certain types of intellectual property (IP) like patents or copyrights through registration processes such as patent law reform etcetera…
There is also a criminal offense of counterfeiting trademarks.
Another important distinction to make is that there are two types of trademarks: “official” and “ordinary.” An official or federally registered trademark is one that has been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
- In some cases, you can still be protected by an ordinary trademark if someone else uses your name or logo in a way that will cause confusion among potential customers. This protection extends only to a subset of products—for instance, if they’re sold through similar channels as yours—and lasts only as long as you continue using it yourself.
- Federal USPTO trademark registration of an ordinary trademark gives you additional rights not granted by state registration; most notably, it applies worldwide rather than just within your state’s borders.
A trademark is a type of intellectual property that can be registered (or applied for) in order to protect your brand name and logo from being used by other companies.
