The Madrid Protocol refers to an international treaty that streamlines the trademark application process by allowing a single international application to apply to multiple countries.

An office action is a notification administered by the USPTO detailing issues with a trademark application that require attention before a registration can be granted.

While you can file a trademark without an attorney, it is highly advisable to hire a licensed attorney with trademark experience to assist when filing your application.

A trademark licensing agreement is a legal contract between a trademark owner and another party that have agreed to use the trademark on preapproved terms decided between the contracting parties.

Registering a trademark is an important part of building a brand and growing name recognition. The process of registering a trademark, however, can be a time-consuming and confusing. Without the aid of a trademark attorney, filers commonly make the same mistakes when they undertake the procedure.

It is possible to have a trademark without registering it with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This is known as a common-law trademark, typically signified by a TM after the mark. However, there can be several advantages to registration including nation-wide rights, ability to use the circle “r” symbol, priority over other users, and more.

Since very early in history, symbols have been used to signify the source of a good or service (e.g., branding cows to designate ownership). In today’s commercial world, it is virtually impossible to avoid the use of trademarks used in conjunction with goods and services in the marketplace.

The Trademark Electronic Search System (“TESS”) is a public online database that can be used for searching United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) pending and registered trademarks. TESS contains both active and inactive trademark registrations, as well as applications.

Many brand owners, entrepreneurs, and company executives underestimate the value of registering a trademark. Trademarks can play an important role in growing your brand or company because they can serve as a brand identifier.

In the information age, companies have the ability to reach potential consumers worldwide through social media, email campaigns, and Internet marketing, as well as through traditional marketing channels. However, opportunistic and unscrupulous people use many of these same tools to sell counterfeit goods and trade on the good names and strong brands of others.

Trademark management is an important part of maintaining an intellectual property portfolio. Intellectual property attorneys, specifically trademark attorneys, have expertise in helping clients consolidate their trademark holdings to ensure their clients’ intellectual property is properly protected.

Attorneys help trademark owners navigate through the application and prosecution process to achieve registration, as well as maintenance of those rights.

Trademarks are intellectual property rights that can be established in common law, without the need for registration. However, registration of a mark at either the state or federal level provides important benefits. Registration creates a public record of the claim to those rights providing notice to third parties, which is important in a dispute regarding those rights.

Trademarks serve as “source identifiers” to consumers about where a particular product or service is derived from. Most commonly, trademarks consist of a word, phrase, and/or design. However, a trademark can also be a sensory mark such as a color, sound, or even a scent, that—due to its distinctive use—becomes a symbol of a company, product, or service.