Building a brand is a difficult proposition. It takes a quality product, marketing, and hard work to have customers associate your brand with excellence. That is why it is imperative that you protect your investment with a trademark. A federal trademark grants you the exclusive rights to the brand. With trademark protection, you can prevent others from using your brand name or slogan, or some deceptive variation, in the marketing of their products. But before a trademark can be registered, two very important analyses must be performed.

The first is the distinctiveness of the mark. Marks are usually put into one of five categories: Fanciful, Arbitrary, Suggestive, Descriptive, and Generic. This is a sliding scale with Fanciful being the most distinct and Generic having no distinction (or trademark protection). For the most part, a mark must be Fanciful, Arbitrary, or Suggestive to be filed on the federal principal trademark register. We can help you evaluate the distinctiveness of your mark and let you know how The Trademark Office is likely to view your mark.

The second analysis is the uniqueness of the mark. Before registering a mark, a complete trademark search should be done to see if the mark is being used by anyone else. This involves checking federal and state trademark registers and searching for common law trademarks. Even if The Trademark Office grants you a federal trademark, an entity that was using the mark before you may still have priority over you in their state or local area. This means that it can prevent you from using your trademarked name in areas where they have priority. This is why a trademark search is so important.

We will perform both of these analyses for you and give you a report with our assessment regarding the distinctiveness and uniqueness of your mark. And, if the results of the evaluation are favorable, we will prepare and file the mark with The United States Patent and Trademark Office.