A lot of individuals call my office and wonder if trademark registration is really necessary. Generally, there are four major benefits of trademark registration. If any of these benefits make sense to you, then I highly recommend that you consider registering your trademark:
1. Federal trademark registrations are used by major companies to police trademark rights. For example, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. all have trademark policies. The policies heavily favor the owner of a federal trademark. If you have a federally registered trademark and there is some infringement of your mark going on in their system (think how big Google is), you can write a letter to their trademark enforcement department and most of the time the infringing use is stopped within a week or two. Compare this with going to court and spending tens of thousands in legal fees to enforce a trademark.
2. Trademarks are like property – they appreciate in value. A trademark can be bought, sold or licensed. Therefore, if you were ever attempting to sell your business one day, ownership of the federal trademark could significantly increase the purchase price.
3. Federal trademark registration ensures protection of your intellectual property. I’ve seen it happen where someone does not register a trademark and then someone else files something similar that then prevents that individual from using their trademark. I then get the “how do we fix this” call. Unfortunately, there are not good fixes to this problem. With 7 billion people on the planet, your idea will occur to someone else. Obtaining a trademark ensures you will not have to worry about someone else being able to limit the use of your trademark.
4. If franchising your business is a consideration, you should always (and I mean always) ensure your trademarks are properly protected.
For more information on trademark registration please call trademark attorney Josh Gerben at 1-877-350-6275
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