- A wide range of business identifiers can be trademarked, including business names, product names, logos, slogans, taglines, mottos, designs, sounds, and even smells.
- Registering a trademark with the USPTO provides nationwide protection against competitors adopting similar business identifiers, as well as protection against counterfeiting and fraud.
- Trademark dilution—using a trademark in a way that weakens its uniqueness, such as a fictional ‘Adidas Hairspray’—is also prohibited even without direct customer confusion.
- The USPTO itself strongly encourages trademark filers to use a licensed attorney specializing in patent and trademark law rather than filing alone.
Protecting your logo, slogan, business name, product name or other identifying marks for your business often involves registering a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Trademarking the elements of your business that help your customers find you and recognize your products or services keeps your competitors from copying or using your trademarks and possibly ruining your reputation or confusing your customers. The USPTO “strongly encourages” trademark filers to hire a licensed attorney with a specialization in patent and trademark law to assist in trademark applications.
Call Thompson Patent Law at (512) 649-1046 to find a skilled and experienced attorney with over 20 years of experience specializing in patents and trademarks and get started protecting your business.
What Kinds of Things Can Be Trademarked?
Pretty much anything that identifies your business or products to your customers in the marketplace can be trademarked. Business names, product names, logos, slogans, taglines, mottos, designs, sounds, and even smells—all can be trademarked to protect your exclusive rights to use them in conjunction with your business or product.
What Practices Does a Trademark Protect Against?
Registering a trademark with the USPTO gives you nationwide protection against a competitor adopting a similar element in their business identification or advertising, and protects against various kinds of fraud and counterfeiting. If a competitor tries to come into the marketplace with a knockoff of your product, a similar business name offering similar business services, or tries to pass off counterfeit products as originals by attaching your labels to counterfeit products, for example, you may have legal recourse against their trademark infringement if you have registered your trademark with the USPTO.
Trademark dilution is also prohibited and consists of using a trademark in a way that weakens the uniqueness of a trademark. For example, “Adidas” is a well-known athletic wear brand. If a company started marketing “Adidas Hairspray,” that would most likely be considered trademark dilution, as it weakens the established connection in consumers’ minds between the term “Adidas” and athletic wear.
Why Should I Choose Thompson Patent Law to Help With my Trademarks?
Thompson Patent Law’s Managing Principal Patent Attorney, Craige Thompson, has had an interest in patents and trademarks since his first semester in law school when he became a registered patent agent. In the 20-plus years since then, Thompson Patent Law has specialized in patent and trademark law and has helped thousands of clients from sole proprietorships to Fortune 100 companies to obtain patents and register trademarks to protect their intellectual property. Call us today at (512) 649-1046 to access our years of experience and vast knowledge base and get started on registering your trademark.
