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Written by : Cedric Borra |
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over the years i've had the fortune to work with a tremendous variety of types of businesses as clients from accountants to real estate agents to software companies to clothing companies to bloggers and websites but i have a soft spot for restaurant clients and that's of course because not only do i love food and love restaurants but my wife and my brother-in-law are actually the owners of two local restaurants here in northern virginia and so while i try really hard to stay out of the restaurant business other than sampling the food i've you know seen the restaurant business from the inside so to speak and in part probably because of that i've have a large number of restaurant clients but restaurants come to me all the time and say do i really need a trademark registration why does a restaurant need a trademark registration that's the heart of what i want to talk about today in this episode restaurants are prime candidates for trademark protection and i want to give you a couple reasons why the first is that a restaurant generally you know runs on a pretty tight budget and the cost of a trademark issue or a trademark dispute can be tremendous for a small business like a restaurant and so the protection and the insurance that a registered trademark gives can be tremendously valuable to help avoid a costly dispute and to help avoid and reduce the risk that the restaurant might have to rebrand or change its name i mean the cost of changing the signage and the menus at a restaurant alone can be a tremendous impact i know i've seen it happen to clients unfortunately um so the security that a trademark registration had provides to help lower that risk is of a tremendous value the second main reason that a restaurant can benefit tremendously from trademark protection is that without a trademark registration protection for a localized business like most restaurants is limited geographically so a restaurant here in the northern virginia area that's operating successfully but does not have a federal trademark registration really has no rights to block somebody from using that name anywhere else in the country so a very similar themed restaurant with a very similar identical name could begin using it in san francisco or boston or miami or tuscaloosa or wherever else in the country and the restaurant here would have little or no chance of being able to stop or shut that down even though some people could be confused when searching online or when visiting one of those other areas because it is a local business and without federal trademark protection their common law rights based on just using the mark are limited to the local area by registering federally a business such as a restaurant expands their rights like immediately to all 50 states it puts everyone across the country on notice uh that they've claimed rights in the trademark and when you get the registration it gives you rights across the country in all states and territories and so that's a tremendous value to a restaurant particularly to a restaurant that might someday expand or be bought or have partnerships or investors um and of course because now even a local restaurant might have issues with uh social media handles and domain names from competing businesses in other parts of the country that's another reason that would be good to have the registration to be able to potentially stop restaurants from operating in those other areas so those are really two really significant areas that affect restaurants a lot and that i go over a lot with potential clients in the restaurant industry if you're in the restaurant industry or any small business and you want to talk about why trademark protection would be a good match for your investment in your brand please reach out to me eric ericpelton.com or find me online happy to have a discussion
Thanks for your comment Michael Crawford, have a nice day.
- Cedric Borra, Staff Member
trademark theft cost small businesses over 300 billion dollars a year I know so let me show you how to register your trademark step number one create unique words or a symbol as your trademark what can be trademarked any name symbol slogan design that is uniquely identified with your product or service people often use the word trademark to refer to both trademarks and service marks technically a trademark is for your goods whereas a service mark is for your commercial services why should you trademark two reasons it keeps customers who had good experiences with your product or service coming back for more it also helps them find your product by finding that logo or that name or that symbol that is trademarked and identifies your unique product or services in reality coke may be indistinguishable to your taste buds from other carbonated drinks however you always order a coke because you remember how good it tasted after you scored your first touchdown you also trademark to prevent others from taking your particular mark and then trying to use that mark to sell their own goods and services it's very likely that if Pepperidge Farms did not trademark its name someone would steal it and attempt to trick customers into buying their own crackers instead of Pepperidge Farms while some of us will create a unique design as our trademark that no one has ever thought of some of us want a trademark a word phrase that maybe someone has thought of and previously registered so it is really smart to research whether or not your word phrase if you have a word phrase has been used before and previously registered there are three different types of research to perform to determine whether or not the word phrase you on a trademark has been used before or as previously registered but before we get there here's when you may want to get an attorney involved in the trademark process attorneys have access to very sophisticated professional databases that provide very timely and accurate information about pending trademark applications so if you have the resources you make and are delegating the research process to them however if you're a do-it-yourselfer like me here's how to research whether or not pending trademark applications are in the computer system first it's really easy perform a Google search and determine whether or not the words you want a trademark appear in business anywhere else second go to who is ICANN org and do a search and find out whether or not the words you want a trademark appear in domain names in the world the last part of the research happens at the website for the US Patent and Trademark Office you use a system that they have it's free to use called tests trademark electronic search system you use the system determine out whether or not there are pending trademark applications in America for the words you want a trademark test is really easy to use simply go to the website for the USPTO gov hover over the trademarks tab click on searching trademarks scroll down to search trademark database you click there move down to basic word mark search and then you click there then you go into the search term field and you type in the words that you want to be trademarked I previously entered what a feeling because I was pretending like I was selling a online product like an online vitamin and I can see here that there's at least one application for this mark that is live in other words it's pending when it says dead then the mark has been abandoned and is available you use the basic word mark search when you're trying to trademark words however when you want a trademark a design you have to use the design mark search and I made a video about how to use that design word mark search and you can find the link to that video in the description section below if you do not see in this screen that the words that you want to use as your trademark has a live application pending then you're looking good for a trademark and you can move on to the next step but before we get there let's take a quick break we've been talking about a lot of complex subjects do you want to trademark a product or a service if you want to trademark a product then write trademark in the comments if you want to trademark a service then write service mark in the comments below okay let's get back to the steps step number three use your trademark to lock in your trademark you actually have to use the words in the symbol in your online business in America once a business starts to use a distinctive name or symbol immediately and automatically has the right to prevent others from using that distinctive name or symbol basically the rule is use it or lose it how do you use a trademark well first your trademark has to be used in your actual business second you have to display the mark so that it's physically associated with the particular product or service that you are going to sell so that could be like a label or a tag perhaps the trademark appears on your website step number four register your trademark once you have used your trademark your next step is to protect it under federal law by officially registering it where do you register it by going back to the USPTO gov website under the trademarks tab go to apply online click on initial application forms there's three different types of application forms I use the TE a s RF at this time of the video it costs $50 more than the cheapest application but I don't want to go through the goods and services listing and I really don't mind communicating with the USPTO through email and online correspondence when you get to the applications scroll down and check no an attorney is not filing this application then you click continue at the bottom here you fill up the applicant contact information remember applicant means the owner of the mark not the person filling out the form so if you want your business to own the mark you should enter in the business name as the applicant after you're done filling out the contact information click continue and you arrive at the mark information screen you click on standard characters and then you enter in the trademark phrase and maybe you get a preview it like I did here then you click continue next is the good service information screen click on add goods and services then type in the basic category for your product click on go then you get this listing of all these different types of related products in this example I'm seeking at trademark for cornbread and so I clicked the cornbread box and hit inserted checked entries then you just click on the bottom continue you don't need to identify the filing basis then it's continue again this takes you to the final screens of the trademark application you enter in your payment information and then you submit the trademark application form and there you have it you did it your trademark application is submitted step number five wait for official registration the next step in the process is actually waiting waiting for the notice of publication if you get that then you know your trademark application was properly prepared when you get the notice of publicatio
Thanks beeldloseJ your participation is very much appreciated
- Cedric Borra
About the author
I've studied feminist philosophy at Cleary University in Howell and I am an expert in family psychology. I usually feel blank. My previous job was environmental science professsor I held this position for 4 years, I love talking about recipe creation and yard games. Huge fan of Joel Kinnaman I practice gymnastics: artistic and collect fossils.
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