Tag: trademark
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Cheapest Way to Protect Your Trade Name (or Trademark, Servicemark, etc)
Have you been to a Burger King restaurant in Mattoon, Illinois? I mean the other Burger King restaurant. There is a restaurant called Burger King, which has nothing to do with Burger King franchise.
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3 Questions Before Launching a New Product
“Everyone copies!” There is often a grey area between innovation and imitation when it comes to a highly competitive industry. Nevertheless, you often hear about patent infringement lawsuits and trademark disputes. Especially in the U.S., lawsuits and other legal disputes are a serious problem for business owners. If you once get served with a complaint,…
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When to Register Trademark?
Most clients come to me after their products reached the market. In fact, that’s when you know for sure that your product has the potential to be something. If not, why invest in registering trademark? On the other hand, most big companies register their intent-to-use (“ITU”) marks months before they actually develop or start selling…
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A Legal Perspective of Trademark Misuse
This article contains fictional scenarios that include facts and legal issues that are created for an explanatory purpose. Any of those facts and legal issues including legal conclusions may not be true when applied to your case. Please seek a legal advice or counsel if you need any help. In past articles, we discussed how…
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Trademark Registration – IPfever Way
I guess you can file a trademark application yourself, which will cost a bit over $200 in government fees (for a long-term cost analysis, see https://www.ipfever.com/how-much-does-a-trademark-registration-cost/ ).Here, the worst case scenario is you get a rejection letter (called Office Action). If there’s a mistake, you can amend it. In other cases, you can probably go around the…
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Choosing a Right Name for your Brand or Product
Zara, which is a Fast Fashion brand like Forever 21, boasts that it takes only 10 to 15 days for an initial product design to reach their retail stores through international manufacture and logistics. In this fast-paced environment where a product can be copied within a few days and mass produced, a superb product design…
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How often do you Google your trademark?
How do you react to a sight of a retail store that just launched? Early adopters enjoy using a product or service before other people do, but most of the consumers tend to be a lot less passionate about embracing a new store although its sight might pop among aging stores. That is why many…
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What is Trademark?
A trademark is a mark you use in order to identify your good or service. For instance, IPfever is a trademark as it’s associated with services and contents offered at IPfever.com. If a law professor wants to start a blog about IP, she shouldn’t name it IPfever. Such naming would mislead people to think that the blog was associated with IPfever. But, on the other hand, if a…
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US Trademark Backlog in the 1Q 2018?
There’s been reports about a huge number of applications, originating from China. See e.g. this WJ article at https://www.wsj.com/articles/flood-of-trademark-applications-fromchinaalarms-u-s-officials-1525521600. Then, is there a backlog created by the increase of Chinese trademarks? I had a chance to look at the dates of applications filed on behalf of my clients from 3Q to 4Q of ’17 and to…
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How much does a trademark registration REALLY cost?
Above is a cumulative showing of trademark fees (government fees only). Assuming you use your trademark for a single type (category) of product/service, an online application fee can cost as low as $225, plus a $125 one-time maintenance fee after 5 years of use and $425 every 10 years. Total $1,200 over 20+ years? Not much right? This calculation doesn’t include…