Startup trademark registration is an important step on your startup journey. It is vital that you pick a suitable trademark and that you adequately protect it. Your mark is an important investment which will help your startup to flourish. However, failing to pick a suitable trademark and/or failing to adequately protect it, could lead to significant financial and legal costs. It could even result in your competitors using your mark, and legally preventing you from doing so.
What is a trademark?
A trademark differentiates your product and/or service from others’. It can be a logo, or one or more words, letters, numerals, sounds, shapes, smells or any combination of these.
The importance of a search
It is important to undertake a comprehensive search on all the relevant databases before choosing a trademark. If you fail to do this, you could, even without intending to do so, be using a mark which is “confusingly similar” to a market competitor’s. If the competitor has already protected their mark, you can be prevented from using yours. As such, you may be forced to rebrand your products and/or services which can be extremely costly. It is therefore worth instructing an experienced trademark attorney to conduct a comprehensive prior search.
Creating a strong mark
Your trademark represents your business. Therefore, it provides the consumer with a way to distinguish you from your market competitors. Hence, the more novel and distinct your mark is, the more likely your brand will stand out. This will help also ensure that your mark meets the requirements for registration and protection. Your mark will not be registered if it is “merely descriptive” or generic.
Filing your trademark before using it
It is wise to file your trademark as early as possible. If you do not protect your trademark, and your brand begins to gain recognition, your startup is vulnerable to competitors riding on the back of your success. They can more easily imitate your brand. Notwithstanding the fact that they benefited from what could be your intellectual property, they could also poach your customers and lower the reputation of your business if their standards are poor.
Therefore, a sensible option is to file your trademark before you start using it. This is possible if you file an “intent to use” application. You can do this if you have a bona fide intention to use the mark in commerce. If a competitor subsequently files a similar mark, you will have an earlier filing date, and will therefore result in your mark having priority over theirs. An important nuance is that if you have a mark elsewhere out of the U.S. you may be able to file a trademark on the basis of this foreign registration.
Balancing cost and benefit
Startup trademark registration can be expensive. Therefore, you should seek trademark protection for brands that will provide sufficient return in the long-term. It is rarely a bad idea to protect the name of your business or its main product. However, a logo that hasn’t yet settled and you are considering changing could be a bad investment.
Identifying foreign markets as early as possible
Trademark protection is territorial. Hence, if you protect your mark in the US, it will not be protected in the European Union, unless you apply for EU protection too. Therefore, you should identify all of the markets in which you plan to trade as early as possible. The earlier you seek international protection, the less likely a competitor can register a similar mark abroad before you do.
