Trademark Questions for the Guru's here

Questions about trademarking

1)Can you have any kind of business attached to a trademark or does the business have to be specific to the trademark?

2)Say you registered "Jim's party palace" as a trademark. Your business is a restaraunt.
What if you later changed it to a party supply business under that trademark name? so basicly you're going from serving people food in a restaraunt setting to selling balloons and party poppers.

3)what if you want to tie up a name to trademark but you dont have a business yet... can this be done? Can you do a simple website with adsense to tie up a name?

4)Can you have variations of a name applied to one business? Jims party palace, Jims palace, Jims partyville

 

1)Can you have any kind of business attached to a trademark or does the business have to be specific to the trademark?

Trademarks are granted by classification i.e. specific type of usage. A type of usage needs to be established.


2)Say you registered "Jim's party palace" as a trademark. Your business is a restaraunt.
What if you later changed it to a party supply business under that trademark name? so basicly you're going from serving people food in a restaraunt setting to selling balloons and party poppers.

Trademarks are usage specific (coined terms and famous brands have more protection) - There can be many different owners of the same trademark - each having specific rights. Having one trademark in a classification does not give you automatic rights in another.


3)what if you want to tie up a name to trademark but you dont have a business yet... can this be done? Can you do a simple website with adsense to tie up a name?

You can apply for an intent to use, but you need to specify a usage and follow up with actual usage in commerce and a filing. This is something a large company might do on a new product before it is released to the public.

4)Can you have variations of a name applied to one business? Jims party palace, Jims palace, Jims partyville

Yes, but for the most protection, you should file for each one and actually use each one in commerce.

In order to have trademark protection, you must be the first to use the term in commerce, in a particular classification. You do not need to file for a registered trademark, but you do gain added rights and it should help cut down on infringement. You should use an intellectual property rights attorney to perform a search for registered and common law marks, and also to advise you of possible problems in infringing upon existing marks. Infringement does not need to be the exact spelling and I would say the vast majority of trademarks applications have potential issues with prior usage.

 

Very informative. Thank you for answering those questions, mjewel.
I hope it helps others here as well.

 

perfect answer
thanks for sharing this information