Fast, Easy, and Affordable Trademark Searches
The American Marketing Association (“AMA”) defines a “brand” as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” This definition is close to how the Lanham Act defines a trademark, which is “any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination …
Ideally, a company will conduct a trademark search before the first use of the mark, but there is value in searching even after you have used a mark in commerce. If you adopt a mark in a remote geographic area without knowledge of a senior user’s rights or before the filing date of a senior …
Type “rebranding” into Google and you will find a plethora of articles discussing when it is appropriate to rebrand a business or product line and how about doing it. Most of these articles will talk about creating the right brand identity so that it is consistent with what was done in the past but with …
As 2017 starts to close and companies are putting together their 2018 budgets, we thought it was a good time to pause and look back at the 2017 trademark year. Year to date, 594,107 new applications were filed, which represents a 12% increase from this time in 2016. There have also been 327,314 new registrations …
There is no one-size-fits-all to a branding budget. They will vary by the size of the company and overall marketing strategy. But for anyone investigating what an appropriate branding budget is, here are the guideposts identified by the authors of Branding for Dummies, 2d Edition: Task …
Continue reading “No Room for Trademark Clearance in the Average Branding Cost Budget?”
In In re Stanley Black and Decker, Inc., the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found that department store services are related to computer store services. The applicant identified its services as “retail department store services and online retail department store services” and the registrant identified its services as “retail store services featuring computer hardware, software, …
BOB wishes everyone a happy and safe Halloween!
Too often we hear that the Secretary of State issued me a corporate name or an assumed name; thus, I have secured my trademark rights. Unfortunately, this way of thinking is wrong. The Secretary of State has no authority to grant trademark rights. Moreover, the Secretary of State is not evaluating company names in its …
Continue reading “The Secretary of State Issued My Corporate Name, I am good right? Wrong.”
U.S. law recognizes the sanctity of communications between attorneys and clients; thus, the law will normally protect such communications from disclosure to third parties under the policy of attorney-client privilege. In Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383, 389 (1981), the United State Supreme Court held that the primary purpose of the attorney-client privilege is …
Continue reading “True Talk About the Attorney-Client Privilege and Trademark Searches”
In 1959 one of the important trademark rules was created. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision in Dawn Donut Co. v. Hart’s Food Stores, Inc., 267 F.2d 358 (2d Cir. 1959). Dawn Donut Co. was a wholesale distributor of doughnuts and other baked goods, the senior user, and owned a …
Continue reading “Dawn Donut, Not a Pastry, One of the Trademark Rules”