Trademark Applications: Think Twice About Automated Registration featured image

Trademark Applications: Think Twice About Automated Registration

by John DiGiacomo

Partner

Trademarks

Properly cared for, your trademark can develop into the most valuable asset you own. At a gathering of staff from several Coca-Cola bottling plants, a senior executive reportedly declared that “the company could lose all its plants, lose all its staff, lose its access to the sources of its raw materials, lose its capital and its accounts, but as long as it had [its trademark], it would be possible to walk into a bank and receive sufficient credit to replace the entire global infrastructure.”¹ Unlike other forms of intellectual property like a patent or a copyright, your trademark can live forever. Given its potential value and import, even fledgling companies should recognize that their trademarks are sacrosanct.

Automated Trademark Registration Services: To Good To Be True

Too often, clients come to us with trademark applications filed through automated services like trademarkengine.com or similar services. The price for such services looks too good to be true because it is. Once a federal trademark application is filed, there are many significant limitations on how it can be amended. A trademark attorney with years of experience dealing with the Trademark Office can help you identify problems that you did not know existed. In most cases, it is important to identify these issues as soon as possible. Being forced to change your brand after a year in business is often a death sentence to a young company.

Preventative Medicine: The Office is Open

Like medical work, a little bit of preventative legal advice is much more cost effective than triaging an early mistake. If you have used a DIY trademark filing website, you may be facing an Office Action from the Trademark Office that illustrates this point. Office Actions often read as though there is no hope for registration. In most cases, however, applicants have options. We specialize in navigating the thorny procedural issues that arise when dealing with the Trademark Office. We also litigate trademark disputes in federal courts across the country. Our expertise gives us a unique perspective that allows us to spot potential issues that attorneys who focus only on trademark applications or trademark litigation would miss.

Your trademark is your reputation. We want to help you protect it.

 

¹Rosemary J. Coombe, The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law 56 (Duke University Press 1998).

Extra, Extra!
Recent Posts

Does the AI-Copyright Legal Fight Represent a National Security Threat?

Does the AI-Copyright Legal Fight Represent a National Security Threat?

Copyright

The holders of copyrights for newspapers, magazines, books, and other publications are involved in numerous legal battles with owners of AI modules over alleged copyright infringement. The plaintiff copyright owners claim that the AI large language modules have been trained on huge quantities of copyrighted materials without permission and — most importantly — without payment. […]

Read more about Does the AI-Copyright Legal Fight Represent a National Security Threat?

How Does Buy-Sell Insurance Work For An Owners’ Agreement?

How Does Buy-Sell Insurance Work For An Owners’ Agreement?

Corporate

The owners of most small, closely-held businesses negotiate and sign some form of an “Owner’s Agreement.” An important part of such Agreements is the “Buy-Sell” provisions. These are often some of the most difficult to negotiate. The gist of the buy-sell part of the Owners’ Agreement is to establish the rules for what happens if […]

Read more about How Does Buy-Sell Insurance Work For An Owners’ Agreement?

Status on Social Media Moderation Statutes and Cases

Status on Social Media Moderation Statutes and Cases

Internet Law

Social media content moderation by technology platforms was one of the “hot” legal topics in 2023-2024. Three States — California, Texas, and Florida — passed different statutes to either require more content moderation (California) or to limit such moderation (Texas and Florida). All the statutes, in one way or another, demanded more transparency and information […]

Read more about Status on Social Media Moderation Statutes and Cases

Put Revision Legal on your side