In What Scenario Would You Need A Trademark Lawyer?
There are many lawyers that one can go to for various reasons. There are criminal lawyers, family lawyers, estate planning, intellectual property, bankruptcy, personal injury, to name a few. All of which have their skills and requirements and can assist you in those specific matters.
Lawyers have different forte, which depend on what they have mastered or focused on. One of the specialized area for this kind of job are the trademark lawyers or attorneys. If you’re interested in becoming one, this information can give you an idea of the course to take, thereof.
Depending on which country you seek their services, they may be called lawyers, attorneys, or agents. An attorney would be someone sitting in the United States, while an attorney or agent is usually found in the United Kingdom.
What’s in A Trademark
In any case, these are people who have the qualifications to act on your behalf and provide legal advice, when it comes to matters dealing with design and trademark scenarios.
A trademark itself is a badge or a name or symbol such as a logo, that identifies you as the owner of the item, be it a product or a service or a design. Some would say your reputation and business are attached to this sign and it is an indication of trust to the public. That they can rely on your good or services.
According to the Chartered Institute of Trademark Attorneys, numerous things can be trademarked, and not necessarily only physical objects. For instance, things as unique as sounds, colors, and shapes, also names, patterns, motion, multimedia, position, holograms are also part of the characteristics that can be identified as an individual. For more information on this click here.
The key here is it must be – unique. This is very important so to avoid confusion with something similar that is already marked. What it must not be is – descriptive. For instance, if you’ve derived a new brand of sports clothing, you cannot call it “sports clothing”, or “Nikey”, because ‘Nike’ already exists, so by putting the ‘y’ at the end, it does not change things.
There are many instances where people have used trademarked names for their products or services, and not been allowed to do so because there exists a company with the same name or logo and it infringes that original company name. However, there are still people that get away with it and create ‘spoofs’ of existing brands, i.e. knock-offs.
In any case, it is always recommended to make sure you do not use something that already exists when branding your products or services to avoid being sued or fined later in time. To make this possible, you need to go through the proper procedures, and this is where trademark lawyers come in.
A Trademark Lawyer
No matter what country you are in, you must apply for a license to operate a business and at the same time, get the name registered with the proper authorities. Different countries have their processes for example the EU covers all regional states which means you can get protection in all its member states with just one application.
The best person to speak to about this would be a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney. You can always search sites like http://www.tatonettiip.com in order to help you with the correct procedure and also to let you know if the brand you want to use is good or not. The responsibility of the said person is to help you by providing the right advice on either the adoption of a new trademark or an existing one. They will also assist you in all the filing and paperwork involved in getting it registered, and use thereof.
In cases where there is opposition, they will also step in and go through the facts and relevant information to make a case if necessary or revoke and invalidate the infringement matters until they reach a consensus or result that hopefully makes both parties agreeable.
Any good lawyer in this field will be regulated as a professional and pass a series of examinations that comply with the individual requirements of the boards and authorities. They will need to follow proper standards of practice and ethics, and when looking for the right one for you, you need to check if they are registered as well.
Typically, the registration process of the client’s work is done in a country’s intellectual property office or IPO, but every country has its version. Once your name is registered, it is indicated by using the letter “R” inside a circle. Much in the same way as copyright is a “C” inside a circle and a trademark that is not yet registered is identified using “TM” in some cases.
Protection of this kind will last for 10 years, after which it needs to be renewed again. Some may last longer. If you no longer use it and the authorities have noted this, then a third-party can request it be removed so they can use it instead or for other reasons. Hence, the two main scenarios you would need one is, either to register a new name or to dispute an existing one used by someone else that is either very similar to or exactly like your existing one.
The Process Involved
When taking the item to the authorities, the examination attorneys will take relevant steps to examine the marks, and run several searches on their database, where they are privy to most (if not all) registered names under various categories. These searches are done to make sure the one they have in front of them is nowhere near any existing sound, pattern, design, name, or connotation to an existing one.
They will also provide expert legal advice at this point. And business advice including recommendations that you may prefer. Once the discussions and searches are finalized, the filling of the application commences. These services also typically handle renewals and other maintenance filing works. Any legal action that needs to be taken is also at the hands of these experts. Having a place that handles everything for you, take a load off your shoulders.