Protect the marks that mean everything to your business. Trademarks -- the names and symbols that identify your business, brand and products in the marketplace -- are important assets that you need to choose carefully, then vigilantly defend. You can protect: -business names -product names -product packaging -logos -slogans -domain names -anything that identifies your company, product or service! With Trademark, you get the most up-to-date information you need to defend your creations. Learn how to: -choose marks that competitors can't copy -search for other marks that might conflict with yours -register a name or other mark -protect and maintain your marks' legal strength -understand and resolve disputes outside the courtroom Thoroughly updated, the 7th edition of Trademark provides the most current information on domain names, changes to trademark statutes and case law, and the latest registration processes.

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A Trademark Primer Introduction This chapter provides an introduction to the basics of trademark law. It will give you the background necessary to understand your rights and obligations in choosing and using a trademark to identify your business and products in the marketplace. If you already have a thorough grounding in trademark law, feel free to skip ahead. Otherwise, please read this chapter carefully. A. Trademarks & Trademark Law What's in a name? To Shakespeare, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But what is true in love can be the opposite in business. IBM would not smell half so sweet by another name, nor would Xerox, Apple Computer, McDonald's or Levi-Strauss. In the business world, the name of a successful product or service contributes greatly to its real worth. Every day, names such as Allendale Auto Parts or Building Blocks Day Care identify these businesses for their customers, help customers find them and (assuming they provide a good product or service) keep the customers coming back again and again. And it's not just a clever business or product name that pulls in the customers. Equally important in the vast U.S. consumer marketplace are the logos, packaging, innovative product shapes, cartoon characters, website address names (domain names) and unique product characteristics that businesses are using to hawk their wares. Even the look and feel of a business's site on the Internet -- widely known as a Web page -- are increasingly becoming important means for a business to identify itself and its products in the marketplace. All of these devices -- business and product names, logos, sounds, shapes, smells, colors, packaging -- carry one simple message to potential customers -- buy me because I come from XYZ Company. To the extent that these devices are unusual enough to distinguish their underlying products and services from those offered by competitors, they all qualify as trademarks. If a small business owner were to remember only one point in this book, it should be this: The instant a business or product name or any other identifying device is used in the marketplace -- be it in advertising, on a label, on an Internet site or in any other way intended to reach out to potential customers -- it falls within the reach of trademark law. Trademark law will determine who wins a dispute over the use of the name. Few business owners can afford to disregard or run afoul of this body of law. 1. What Are Trademarks? Trademarks fall into two general categories: marks that identify goods or products (known as trademarks) and marks that identify services (known as service marks). While you may occasionally see this distinction in action, these terms are, in fact, legally interchangeable, and the even more general term -- mark -- commonly is used to refer to both. In this book, we tilt towards the terms "trademark" and "mark" and seldom use "service mark." Technically speaking, a trademark is any word, design, slogan, sound or symbol (including nonfunctional unique packaging) that serves to identify a specific product brand -- for instance, Xerox (a name for a brand of photocopiers), Just Do It (a slogan for a brand of sport shoes and sportswear), Apple's rainbow apple with a bite missing (a symbol for a brand of computers), the name Coca-Cola in red cursive lettering (a logo for a brand of soft drink).

 

Protect the marks that mean everything to your business.

20 Frequently Asked Trademark Questions Introduction 1. A Trademark Primer 2. Trademarks, Domain Names and the Internet 3. How to Choose a Good Name for Your Business, Product or Service 4. Trademark Searches—What They Are and Why You Should Do One 5. How to Do Your Own Trademark Search 6. How to Evaluate the Results of Your Trademark Search 7. Federal Trademark Registration 8. How to Use and Care for Your Trademark 9. Evaluating Trademark Strength 10. Sorting Out Trademark Disputes 11. If Someone Infringes Your Mark 12. If Someone Claims That You Infringed Their Trademark 13. International Trademark Protection 14. Help Beyond This Book Appendixes A. Class Descriptions B. Glossary of Terms C. Trademark Search Report Index

"Get tips to help you choose and protect a name, logo and other unique items that identify your company."

 

"Excellent step-by-step instructions for registering a mark, written in plain English with clear examples."

 

"Searching for a winning business or product name? Or have a distinctive logo or slogan to protect with a trademark or service mark? You will find sound advice in this book."

 

Stephen R. Elias is an attorney and associate publisher at Nolo.com. He is the author of many Nolo titles, including: How to File for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Trademark: Legal Care For Your Business and Product Name, Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law, and Nolo's Pocket Guide to Family Law. Steve has been interviewed by most major media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Good Morning America, 20/20, Money Magazine and more. He received his law degree from Hastings College of Law and practiced law in California, New York and Vermont before joining Nolo in 1980. In recent years much of Steve's time at Nolo has been devoted to the fields of self-help legal software and online legal information. He is one of the original authors/designers of Nolo's bestselling WillMaker program, as well as the software version of Nolo's Patent It Yourself.

 

Trademark by Stephen Elias
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