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Written by : Lindsay Leray |
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there are a few things that cannot be protected under trademark law so first broadly what can be protected is anything that indicates the source of a business's products or services that could be a name it could be a logo it could be a slogan it could even be a sound or another type of non-traditional mark but not everything can be protected or registered the main thing that cannot be protected is a generic name a generic term so if I was to open a new restaurant and call it you know the donut shop there's nothing unique there's nothing for protectable it's obviously apparent on its face what I sell and there's nothing probably that could be protected about that name the other type of things that cannot be protected are things that aren't used to indicate the source so what I mean by that is if they are merely providing information or they under trademark law what's called fails to function as a mark and we are seeing in just the last year - and a increase of the number of refusals due to that so for example if you use a slogan that is made up of very common words in your industry you may not be able to protect it if you use something that's merely informational even if you incorporate it into a logo or a slogan it may not be a protectable an example of that would be you know if you have a restaurant to go back to a restaurant example yeah you know happy hour every day from noon till sunset maybe their original maybe nobody else has happy hour during those hours but because consumers wouldn't look at that and think that it was telling them something about your brain and they would look at it and think it was just telling them something informational about your services it's not functioning as a trademark other examples along these lines would be information about you know lowest price guaranteed or saddest satisfaction guaranteed is another example you know nobody can protect that phrase it's it's not indicating the source of the goods or services so while many many many tools use by brands can be registered and should be registered and protected you do want to be on the lookout for those things where they can't be protected and then it might be a waste of money to file and try to register them you
Thanks for your comment Chung Amela, have a nice day.
- Lindsay Leray, Staff Member
hi everybody trademark attorney josh gerbin today i want to talk to you about what trademarks should you protect and it's a great question because it's not always an obvious answer so here's a quick list of the things you should try to protect with a trademark registration for your business the number one and most obvious and most important is the name of your business itself this should typically be protected even before you open your doors but if you haven't protected it now that should be your top priority in a close second as far as priority is concerned any names of particular products or services that differ from your company name should also be protected with a trademark registration you could also protect logos so think of the logo for your business name or logos for individual products or services those can be protected with a trademark registration as well the logos should typically be filed in a separate application this way here if those logos ever change the underlying name is still protected by a separate registration other things on your list can include slogans so think of nikes just do it if your company has a similar tagline or slogan that can be registered as a trademark and finally one of the most interesting things you can register as a trademark is something called trade dress so if you're selling products your product packaging could actually be protected by a trademark if you're running a service based business and someone walks into your store and there's a particular look and feel in all your stores that look and feel can be protected by a trademark registration called trade dress protection so i hope you found this video interesting as you can see there's a lot of different trademarks that any given business can register and the great thing about trademarks is they are intangible property this means once they're registered they become an asset of your company if you're ever looking to sell your company in the future having as many trademarks registered as possible will drive up the value of your company if you have any further questions about trademarks you can protect for your business please feel free to give us a call or get in touch with us by going to gerbenlaw.com backslash contact this is trademark attorney josh gerbin i'll talk to you next time
Thanks Roscoe your participation is very much appreciated
- Lindsay Leray
About the author
I've studied communication design at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw and I am an expert in cybernetics. I usually feel touched. My previous job was lunchroom supervisor I held this position for 9 years, I love talking about playing musical instruments and lamp making. Huge fan of Matthew Perry I practice tennis and collect for sports cards.
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