Experienced Trademark Law Attorneys For Your Business

A professional attorney can help navigate the process of trademarking your company or product. The best trademark law firm will have years of experience and expertise in this field covering a variety of specialties. A trademark lawyer will guide you through the process and work with your company to determine what is best for your business. We will help you with the registration process and any potential problems that may arise.

A trademark lawyer is a professional who helps businesses protect their trademarks and prevent others from infringing on them. A US trademark attorney will help you navigate the USPTO and respond to USPTO correspondence or objections.

You don’t need a lawyer to file for your trademark. However, it is always best to consult with a lawyer before filing any legal documents. Filing on your own can be risky. Hiring a lawyer will ensure your trademark is protected throughout the process.

An experienced trademark lawyer is the best resource for protecting your brand. The USPTO has tight deadlines and you must follow strict requirements in order to be registered. There are many benefits to the use of a trademark attorney. If your application is not filed correctly or if it’s rejected by the patent office, they can help with the process.

A good trademark attorney will be able to guide you through the process of registration, file an application for a trademark, and even help you with filing disputes.

You can find an experienced trademark lawyer online, or you can find one locally. You can find information on the USPTO website and through local organizations like the American Bar Association or The Association of Trademark Counsel (ATC). Lapin Law Firm has years of experience in every aspect of trademark law and combined with our customer service and affordability your search can end here by giving us a call.

Trademarks are becoming increasingly important for company owners. Intellectual property, or IP, is the legal term for things like poems and inventions. IP also includes designs and signs that businesses utilize to identify the origin of services or products.

When you have trademark protection, it is easier for clients to locate your company and the services or products supplied. When you utilize a trademark, your consumers can instantly identify your business and accessible goods or services whether they are on social media, surfing the web, or touring the neighborhood. The International Trademark Association has said that a package design, word, device, name, symbol, slogan, or any combination may be protected as a trademark provided it distinguishes and identifies one product from another.

There are two types of trademark registrations: federal and state. A federal registration protects the trademark owner’s rights against infringements in interstate commerce, while a state registration protects the owner’s rights against infringements in the state where the owner lives.

The following are the four categories of trademarks:

• Fanciful or arbitrary
• Suggestive
• Descriptive
• Generic

The most powerful marks are fanciful or arbitrary. No protection is available through generic marks. Between suggestive and descriptive, we have intermediate trademarks. As a result, it’s critical that you build your trademark with the intention of getting the best possible protection.

Generic Marks

A generic mark is a trademark that utilizes common, everyday terms that anybody is entitled to use. A generic term will frequently refer to the specific class or variety of which the good or service is a member.

Descriptive Marks

Descriptive trademarks utilize words that merely describe the item or service. A descriptive trademark may be one that uses color, aroma, or component of a product or service. Unless it acquires distinctiveness, a mark that is only descriptive can’t be registered. For at least five years in commerce, the mark must be highly utilized before it will acquire distinctiveness. This means that the mark must be used in such a way to bring it into public perspective.

Suggestive Marks

Suggestive marks, on the other hand, suggest the qualities or characteristics of a product. These markings differ from descriptive logos in that they do not describe the item but rather imply one aspect of it that needs to be considered or perceived by the customer. Suggestive marks are powerful trademarks and the next best option after fanciful or arbitrary trademarks.

Arbitrary or Fanciful Marks

Made-up or real words that have no connection to the offered goods or services are known as fanciful or arbitrary marks. These are the most powerful kinds of marks, and they receive all of the protection. It’s also less likely that someone else will use a made-up or arbitrary word to characterize your product or service because they’re frequently constructed

The strength of a mark is measured by which category it falls into, and the strength of the mark determines how much legal protection it receives. The strongest marks are known as “fanciful,” and they are given the most protection. Trademarks on trademarks that are considered “generic” have no trademark rights.

Trademark and copyright are two different forms of intellectual property that protect an idea or a name. Trademarks give the right to use a particular design, word, phrase, logo or symbol. Copyright protects a creator’s original written or artistic work, such as a book, film, song or software program.

Trademarks and copyrights are both types of intellectual property, which are intangible assets that may be defined as the work of the intellect—such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, names and images used in trade.

This can include any business ideas or processes that originate from them, depending on the situation. This being said, intellectual property is protected in the United States via trademarks and copyrights, as well as patents.

The primary distinction between copyright and trademark is that, while both offer intellectual property protection, they safeguard different sorts of assets and need distinct registration processes.

Copyright protects literary and artistic works, such as books and films, as well as compositions that are generated automatically when they are created. In contrast, a trademark protects goods that help define a business’s brand and need more formal government registration to obtain the strongest legal protections.

The trademark clearance search system is a database that checks trademarks to determine if they are being used by other companies. It is free of charge and can be accessed through the United States Patent & Trademark Office. You must first register your trademark before conducting a search, because only registered marks are listed in the database.

You can do a search yourself if you have basic knowledge about trademarks to determine if it has already been used by another business. Otherwise, consider hiring an attorney to perform this search for you or hire a professional services company that specializes in trademark matters.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office may issue an office action response that tells the applicant why their trademark is being denied, questioned or refused. If so, there are three possible responses:

1) absolutely refuses registration—the trademark has a conflict with a prior registered trademark that remains in use

2) questions or requests information from the applicant to clarify goods or services that will be used under the mark

3) refuses registration – same as no response – applicant never responded after initial acknowledgment.

The first two responses require pre-registration verification of goods and services. If an applicant fails to respond to an office action within 12 months, the case goes abandoned and the USPTO will either refuse registration because no intent of use can be established, or it will designate the goods and/or services as “abandoned” due to lack of action.

A trademark opposition is an act of asserting that an applicant’s trademark should not be granted on the grounds that it may cause confusion. A potential opponent can oppose an application if they feel like there would be a ‘likelihood of confusion’. The potential opponent must prove this. The onus is on the challenger to prove that confusion may result from the use of a similar mark.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office will allow an applicant to amend their application if they receive an office action response stating ‘office action’ and would like to submit more information in support of their application or rebuttal statement, which can be submitted within 30 days of receiving the office action response. A trademark opposition proceeding has strict deadlines and start dates so it’s important to work with a law firm who specializes in trademark opposition proceedings and appeals.

Trademark cancellations are the only other type of trademark protection available—and it’s not very common. A trademark cancellation request is submitted when a trademark owner no longer wants their registered trademarks. Once a trademark has been cancelled, it can be used by anyone. However, this only occurs when the current trademark holder requests that registration of the mark be cancelled, and not through an opposition proceeding or litigation. A party seeking to have a registered mark canceled must prove that the mark was abandoned before being allowed to use it on goods or services in commerce for a period of at least three consecutive years prior to its attempted cancellation claim.

On average, a trademark application takes a year to complete. Every trademark case is unique and is influenced by a variety of factors, such as whether you submit an “in use” or “intent-to-use” application, whether other parties oppose it, whether the USPTO issues any Office Actions concerning your application, and so on. In general, trademark approval takes at least a year, and the benefits of trademark protection should be expected. One good thing is that no matter how long it takes to get your trademark approved (assuming it gets approved), you are entitled to retroactive protection from the date of filing your trademark application.

When it comes to trademarks, federal law protects you for 10 years from the date you first registered your trademark. However, unless you file a section 8 affidavit, your mark will only be protected for another 5 years after that. Trademarks can endure indefinitely if you keep filing maintenance documents with the USPTO and continue to use them as stated in registration papers. You must also defend your trademark against infringement according on the registration papers.

A trademark’s duration is contingent on how it is used. If the owner of a brand keeps up, it can last indefinitely. The nature of trademarks’ protection is complex. A company must first understand what a trademark really is in order for them to know how long a trademark will endure. After that, a business owner may predict with accuracy how long they have before their mark expires.

When another person uses a device in such a way as to deceive consumers into thinking that the goods or services are associated with, or sponsored by, your business, an infringement has occurred under trademark law. Only where the goods of the parties aren’t so similar that customers may be confused should multiple parties use the same mark. Common law trademarks can only protect marks in areas where the same or similar logos are not used. Because federally registered trademarks have a national scope, they are protected throughout the United States.

An owner of an abandoned trademark loses their rights in the mark. If they have a registration, the registration is subject to cancellation. The consequences of a discontinued brand are as follows:

• The mark becomes available for anyone to use;
• The registration becomes subject to cancellation; and/or
• Any company infringing on the trademark may be permitted to continue to use it.

An abandoned trademark can be subject to cancellation through a Trademark Trials and Appeals Board (TTAB) proceeding where the adverse party will be required to prove abandonment and the trademark owner will be given an opportunity to show that the mark was not abandoned.