A trademark owner who believes its trademark is being infringed may file a lawsuit for trademark infringement. Before filing a lawsuit, a trademark owner will usually send a cease and desist letter. Getting a cease and desist letter is no fun, but it is way better than getting a served with a complaint for trademark […]
Unlike other forms of intellectual property, trademarks, if used properly, can last forever. If used improperly, trademark rights can become generic. The International Trademark Association (“INTA”) developed a handy test for helping non-lawyers remember how to use a trademark properly. It’s called the A.C.I.D. Test: Making sure that everyone at your institution knows and applies […]
WARNING: Distinctiveness is the hardest concept to understand in all of trademark law. It is counter-intuitive and complex. Unfortunately, understanding it is the key to coming up with a good trademark. We’ve tried to make it as painless as possible, but it’s still terrible. In order to receive any sort of protection, trademarks must be […]
There are three general categories of trademarks. “Word marks” consist solely of letters or numbers and do not contain any other information. “Stylized marks” consist of a design of some sort including logos, words in specific fonts, or combinations of each. There also a wide range of “non-traditional marks” including trade dress (product packaging), sounds, […]
There can be no doubt that brands are valuable. The contribution of branding to company value by the top brands is measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Your company’s success or failure depends on your brand. Although “brand” and “trademark” are often used interchangeably, there is a difference. A brand is what a […]
Clearly, a good trademark is one that is not already used by another company. The basic test used by the USPTO when determining whether a mark can be registered and by the courts when determining infringement is whether there is a likelihood of confusion between the two marks. The USPTO will find a likelihood of […]
The International Trademark Association (INTA) is the world’s leading organization for trademark owners and practitioners. INTA’s website has a lot of great educational materials and other resources available to the public for free.
The USPTO has an online directory of all of its employees, which comes in handy if you have your Examining Attorney’s name, but no contact information.
Trademark Oppositions, Cancellations, and appeals of a refusal of a trademark application are all handled by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). The documents related to these proceedings can be filed and accessed online using the USPTO’s Electronic System for Trademark Trials and Appeals (ESTTA), which is pretty convenient.
The USPTO allows you file basically everything electronically on its website through its TEAS system. Conveniently, every USPTO trademark form is indexed on a single page of the USPTO website, so if you aren’t sure what form you need you can look it up pretty easily there.
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