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question the day here today when should you trademark your business name or your logo or your brand I'm gonna tell you just a second hey my name is Jim Hart I'm the founding attorney here at Hawthorn law and you might be wondering gem why are you sitting on the floor in front of this couch with the lighting that's awful to be perfectly honest it's because I'm in our land over them at the airport and I made this stupid terrible mistake if you've ever been to the Orlando Airport they have this atrium and you can either get a room that overlooks the atrium or you get a room that overlooks the runway typically I get a room that overlooks the runway they didn't have any available I flew in early this morning I needed a nap I just I was like I need a room fit the bullet I got this room but the lighting is not nearly as good as what I'm used to in the other room check out some my older videos and you'll see how much better the lighting is in those rooms anyway not that you really care you want to know when to trademark your logo or brand hold on a second I was talking to a client yesterday I did a I've still got some spots available for next week but I opened up a consult I greatly reduced my rate from $350 an hour to $200 an hour for a limited time to open up some half-hour slots between now and Christmas so you can get a consult with me if you need to consult for $97 I'll link to the link up here to get more information on that but anyway I was having a consult with somebody who took advantage of this offer earlier this week and one of the questions we were talking about was when they should trademark their brand or their logo or whatever this is a great question the appropriate legal answer is that you should trademark your brand name as soon as you possibly can that's not always practical there's some people that that for whatever reason because the money is tight or whatever they can't do it right away but if you've got a really good idea for a brand and you want to make sure nobody else starts stealing your intellectual property you need to get that trademark as soon as possible get that puppy trademark so that would be my official legal recommendation is to anyone who asks you need to get it done as soon as possible now there's there's a couple ways that you can go about trademarking a brand especially when you're just starting out the first way is if you're actually using it to sell products or services then you can just go ahead and file a trademark application to get a trademark immediately if you're not yet using it to sell products or services but maybe you've got it on your website and you're just kind of starting to build up a business but you haven't actually used it to sell anything yet and you've got a great idea you want to make sure nobody steals it then you can file what's called a notice of use trademark application which is it's it's the same application you just check a different box in the application and basically what happens is you go through the same process then you're given a period of time where you can start using the trademark because the trademark doesn't actually provide you any protection unless you're selling a good or service and so what you get is you get you get extra time to start selling your good or service your goods or services maybe that's a better way to say that anyway you get extra time and then if within that period of time you can either file for an extension or if you start using your trademark you file a notice that you've started using the trademark and then the trademark will register and then you're good to go from there but if not then you get an extension and you've got a couple extensions so in all I'll told you can get a couple of years to basically start using that trademark and if you don't start using the trademark then you can just abandon the application and it goes back out there into the the world is anybody else care plan for that trademark if they wanted to my advice to you is if you're looking to build a business or a brand that you really want to grow and you think that you've got a really great name that that you want to protect then you want to trademark that brand or name as soon as possible I think a great example of this was and I forget her name the woman who created Spanx she didn't tell anybody about her brand for a year for at least a year there was an interview I heard where she was talking about this I'll try and link up down below to the interview with this woman it was on a podcast and she talked about how she went through methodical steps to do everything she could to protect the brand Spanx through she filing her patent application getting the process patented and her trademark and everything else as soon as she possibly could without telling anyone about what she was doing and then when a time came for her to start selling she had it all in place that's a great example of why you need to do it early because she had a great name a great concept and she wanted to make sure it was protected I'll do another a video on all the different reasons why you should trademark your brand but I just wanted to do this video to answer those questions for those of you out that are wondering when you should do it how soon you should do it if you want to do the trademark application yourself I don't recommend it but you can do it yourself if you've got a good name that's easily too tricky I just can't talk today if you've got a good name that's easy to trademark you can probably do it for the cost of the filing fee which is around three hundred dollars if you really want some legal guidance and you want to do a search and you want to figure out if anyone else is using this trademark and you want some help doing all that you've got two choices you can either hire an attorney which this is something that we do to do this for you or you can join our DIY legal program I'll include a link up here where we do a tutorial on how to trademark your brand and how to come up with a good name and all those type of things and that's something that we're going to include in that program so so there are other ways to do it they're a little bit less expensive anyway that's it for today I hope you're having a great day I also have a free training I'm gonna link up up here if you want to watch a replay of the webinar that I did several months ago that has gotten a lot of positive reviews you can go ahead and do that that's it for today folks have a great day don't forget give us a thumbs up comment below if you've got a question you know just type trademark and let me know that you're listening that you understand what I'm saying or if you just have a comment that you want leave a comment below and ask a question that's fine we'll use that for future videos we do not answer illegal questions in YouTube comments that is a big no-no don't forget to subscribe yeah that's down here and hit the little Bell thingy and can get notified whenever we post new videos we're posting videos about once a week going forward for my DIY members I'm looking to do a Q&A call every Friday for them I don't th
Thanks for your comment Ethan Moulding, have a nice day.
- Zoe Glau, Staff Member
so you own a pretty catchy dot-com domain name to sell your goods and services sort of like what amazon.com does so why should you still register a trademark well imagine you own a piece of property car se or a plot of land what's to stop someone from coming over and saying that it's their land not yours where you have the deeds and proof of ownership to show that use the land legally belongs to you in order to avoid this from happening a trademark registration is very similar to this it might sound simple but you'll be surprised how often ownership disputes occur new businesses and people choose the same word or word combinations already being used and trademarked by other brands if you don't register yours then down the line you may get third-party claims against your brand these usually involve messy and costly legal proceedings to establish whose rights are earlier and stronger this is where trademark registration comes in handy it records when you stated your claim for that particular brand in addition the process of registering a trademark usually includes publication of your claim to the public for a period of time in which anybody can raise an opposition trademarks also help if there are disputes about who is in touch with social media handles like getting a channel on YouTube or Twitter handle even if you initially managed to convince YouTube to give you the channel name if anybody else owns a trademark registration you run the risk that they will approach YouTube and demand it your channel name be taken away and given to them anybody can whether a regular citizen a legal professional or corporate entity you can apply for a trademark for US trademarks you do not need to be an attorney if you're an American citizen or the applicant is a corporation or organization domiciled in the US but often you may want to use the services of an attorney to avoid some mistakes that could ultimately lead to not getting the trademark registered and that's where the trade markers Network comes in you see there's only a limited amount of words and pronounceable sounds in the English language so the capture your brand is the more likely it is somebody's already filed for it whereas granted a trademark before you but for this person to retain the rights of a trademark registration they also need to use it and declare such use to the trademark office when a trademark is also granted in one or more specific classes for example retail clothing or software consulting for each class you need to describe the goods or services you will be using the trademark for and importantly provide proof that you're actually using the market so it's worthwhile to seek guidance for these critical steps to place your brand in the right class to suit your business needs if during the publication of your trademark application somebody feels that they should be entitled to the exclusive use of the mark instead they can file what is called an opposition the result is that the US Patent and Trademark Office or trademark office in the applicable country then goes through the process of determining who has an earlier priority date and stronger riped and then makes a decision whether to grant you the trademark or not during these proceedings hope the applicant and holder may submit evidence as to who started using the trademark earlier and who is legally entitled to its ownership please feel free to watch more of our videos to get valuable insights about the mechanics of applying for trademark registrations defending your marks opposing other conflicting marks dealing with office actions and many other intellectual property issues my name is Jonathan Morton and I'm a licensed US attorney and a member of the trade markers Network don't forget to subscribe you
Thanks Segolaq your participation is very much appreciated
- Zoe Glau
About the author
I've studied quantum information at Chamberlain University in Addison and I am an expert in manuscriptology. I usually feel sympathetic. My previous job was scanner operators I held this position for 27 years, I love talking about rail transport modelling and lapidary. Huge fan of Nathan Fillion I practice yoga and collect antique.
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