Federal trademark registration provides a number of unique benefits. A federal registration allows you to stop others from using or registering a similar trademark in any U.S. state, even if you only sell in a few states. It gives you access to the federal court and a right to sue infringers. A registration can also help stop importation of counterfeit goods into the U.S. Finally, a trademark registration can be very helpful in policing your brand on online platforms like Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and others. These companies regularly take down infringing content at the request of the owner of a registered trademark.

A trademark can’t be a generic word that everyone in your industry needs. You can’t stop your competitors from using the English language to describe their products and services. The best trademarks are entirely made up words (like Exxon for gas stations or Xerox for photocopiers). However, businesses frequently like to adopt trademarks that are suggestive of what they do or sell (for example, COFFEEMATE for coffee creamer).

The first priority is to protect the name of your business, then your logo, and then your tagline(s) or unique product names. To protect a name, logo, and tagline would require three separate trademark applications.

If your budget doesn’t allow for three or more applications, then you should probably focus on just protecting the name of your business and maybe your logo.

You can always apply for lower priority marks in the future. Also, as your company adds new products or services in the future, you simply apply to expand your protection over those brands, products, and services as they launch. Trademarking isn't a one-time event for most businesses. As they grow, they add more marks to their portfolios. For example, large companies like Nike and Starbucks have hundreds of trademark registrations for example.

The USPTO is the United States Trademark and Patent Office. It is the government agency tasked with examining and recording federal trademarks in the United States. The USPTO will be your primary adversary during the application process, and your best friend after your mark has registered, once the weight of a federal government registration is behind you.

A trademark offers its owner the exclusive right to use it in presenting, advertising, or otherwise identifying some set of goods and/or services. This means that if someone else has thought of your trademark before you, and has registered it for goods and/or services that are sufficiently related, that the trademark is no longer available for your use. Although this is never the desired outcome, it can be very valuable information, as it can save you hundreds of dollars in government fees, as well as the time that you would be waiting for your trademark to process, only to see it refused.

Finally, it helps prevent the risk of the owner of the prior registered trademark finding out about your use of a similar trademark, and coming after you legally. On the upside, while we can never guarantee that the USPTO won’t find any issue with your application, a trademark search that does not identify any direct conflicts can offer great peace of mind as you move forward with your application.

You can easily stop someone from using your trademark if you can prove that you were the first user of the trademark and that both names are bound to create confusion among consumers.

Of course, the Federal Registration will have a better mechanism to stop infringers. You will also have the common legal rights to stop them while you conduct legal business.

Yes! A live, Principal Register trademark registration is currently required to be eligible for the Amazon Brand Registry. Trademark Classic understands this requirement, and will work with you to make sure that your trademark will qualify for the brand registry, if at all possible.