Trademarks are to protect a brand as it grows. When you’re registering a trademark, you’re either doing it for a name of a company, a name of a product, or a catchphrase. And what it allows is to have a bit of exclusivity for the type of goods, products, or services you offer. Meaning other people cannot copy your brand, use your brand, or otherwise replicate what you’re doing. So as you put in a lot of time and effort to build a brand to grow a reputation, earn customer’s loyalty and respect. It allows you to keep others from riding your coattails or being able to mimic or copy your brand.

When you’re registering a trademark, you need to identify what the trademark is or what you want to protect, whether the name of a company, a product, a logo, or a catchphrase. To protect your brand,  you will need to prepare an application that’ll outline what you want to trademark and the type of categories you will be using. 

The Way Trademark Works

The way trademarks work is when you file the trademark, it indicates the types of products or the type of services you’re going to be using the trademark for. For example, Nike has trademarks for athletic wear and sports apparel, but they don’t have automobiles. So you could actually go out and get a trademark for Nike automotive because they’re significantly different from what Nike does; that’s what people get confused about. 

You need to identify what types of goods and services you will be using your brand with. Once you get that identified, you’re going to submit it to the trademark office. The trademark office will examine your trademark and see whether it’s confusingly similar to other trademarks already out there. And if it’s not confusingly similar, then they’ll go ahead and allow the trademark. You’ll have a registered trademark, and it’ll be enforceable. 

If it is more confusing with what’s already out there, you may get a rejection. If you get a rejection, you’ll get an opportunity to argue back and forth and convince them why it should be trademarkable and why you’re different from what’s out there. The trademark office will then either be convinced of allowability based on your arguments or you will get another rejection. At that point, you will have to decide whether to operate without a trademark or to rebrand.

Consulting a Lawyer for Trademark

You’re probably going to get a bit of a biased opinion for this one. In general, when you’re getting into the legal aspects of intellectual property, unless you’re an expert, it’s always the right decision to go to an attorney. An attorney can walk you through the process and make sure it’s done correctly. There’s a much higher likelihood of getting the trademark and being able to get a successful registration of a brand or a logo or design by consulting a lawyer.