I have some popular website and it has a unique name which has no english meaning or anything like that. I own the .com,.net extensions and i want to protect my name been used by other extensions and used offline by other business. 1. How to register my trademark? How much it costs and do i have to pay every year for it? 2. Can i register my name for all subject areas or only for selected. Lets say i am related to IT. Then can someone use my name for bakery products? How to stop it? 3. Is there a way to register a trademark worldwide? Is it a huge cost? If i can't then what countries i should mainly target since i am trying to build a brand but i am not really having lot of cash. Thanks in advance
I believe a registered trademark would only protect your logo. Not the actual name. You can't copyright a word (or at least not most words). I would look up the information on the US Patent website. If I am wrong and someone can show how it's done then I would also like that information. I have a website with a domain name of a word I made up. If you search for this word it only comes up with results from my site. No one has ever used it. I would like to copyright it. Once the word catches on it will definitely become common term for what it represents.
First off, you can trademark your name and logo simply by putting a TM after them. In effect, you are claiming a trademark and that is the first step of getting a registered trademark from the US Patent office. Usually, you have to have been trademarking your name/logo for a couple of years (and be able to prove it) before the USPTO will give you a registered trademark which allows you to put an R after your name/logo. Keep in mind that the value of a trademark, registered or not, is directly proportional to your ability to defend it in court. If you are not prepared to find and sue violators in court (which means that you will have to prove that you are the legitimate owner of the trademark, which can get tricky_) there is little value or protection in trademarking. By the way, if you want to do this internationally, you will have to do so country by country. A very expensive and time-consuming process.
Wow that's very interesting jrbiz. So you're saying having a "TM" is simple, I can just claim it, but only after I do it for a couple years (and how would I prove I am the original trade mark and not the copy-cat? ) then I can turn it into an (R) and it actually becomes protected? Do we have to fill out an application? What happens if someone steals your TM anyway, and you are very new, and you can't fight it back? Also, just putting a TM on your logo/name has no penalty? No where to register etc?
1. Depending on your jurisdiction, you might be "required" to use the word or so in commerce, or even file a registration and be granted a trademark. Check with an intellectual property lawyer in your country to be sure, as countries around the world aren't forced to adopt the same standards to establish any trademark right. 2. Again depending on your jurisdiction, you might. Someone else might use it for either a competing product or service or something unrelated, and it might be easy or tough to stop it. 3. As jrbiz said, you'd have to file one in every country, which is quite costly and time-consuming. And you target the countries you aim to do business in. That might work in some obscure country, but not in those like the U.S. which requires one to demonstrate such.
To register a trademark try http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm.htm (that's for the UK not sure where you are from though)
If you are in the US... and just want there to record your mark, you can apply to the secretary of state in your home state. It is considerably less expensive ($50 in my state) than through the USPTO. State trademark or servicemark registrations do not check for US or global registrations. The state only checks within their own borders for similar trademark or servicemark registration. State registrations will atleast give you documentary proof when you began using the mark.
Protecting a trademark worldwide, for all possible uses is extremely hard (if not impossible) for small brand and would be very expensive (six figures or more). Owning a domain does not give you any trademark rights in the US - you have to be using the mark, and protection will be limited by the type of usage. Protection starts by putting up content on the site and defining your usage of the name. If you use the mark to sell pet supplies, and someone want to use the name for their accounting business, you aren't likely going to be able to do anything about it.
State trademark are largely useless under the USPTO or ACPA, so you should file for trademark registration. A US registration is the most important and will cover you very broadly, assuming you plan on offering services to US citizens. You only need one registered trademark in one country to significantly increase your protection under the UDRP, ACPA and even other country law. See web sites below for more info ... Trademark Registration Issues Discussed http://tcattorney.typepad.com/ip/2008/11/do-i-need-a-tra.html http://tcattorney.typepad.com/ip/2008/09/if-you-plan-t-1.html Trademark Registration FAQ It costs about $1,200 total to get through the US trademark process if you hire an attorney to handle it for you.. Pretty low cost and typically a solid ROI. Good luck. Good luck ... EnricoSchaefer, Traverse Legal, PLC
The way that you "demonstrate" such, as far as I know, is by doing what I said and that is putting a TM after the trademarks in your sales literature, website, letters to customers/prospects, etc.
It's probably semantics, but one point here is the way you maybe phrased it might cause others to think that's all it'll take to have a trademark. Especially in the U.S., one can establish a trademark right by active and consistent use of the word or so in commerce, to the point your market learned to associate the product's name or so with its source. Depending on a variety of things, it might or might not be necessarily easy to just have a trademark with the snap of one's fingers. That's where filing some kind of application at the relevant office might help, though again it depends also on one's jurisdiction.