Trademark Law

Different is good. The products you create and sell are different from your competitors. The services you offer are unique to you, to your business, to your team. And it’s because you offer these different services and sell these special goods that people want them.

The public recognizes your business and the goods and services it offers, by your brand. And your brand greets the world through trademarks. Words, designs, slogans, and even colors or sounds can all be trademarks. You worked hard to develop your business, figure out it’s unique selling proposition, and line it up with the trademarks you use. So, protect your valuable trademarks, sooner than later. We’re here to help.

ARE YOU READY?

Let’s start with the basics:

• Do you use a unique name, logo, and/or slogan, or combination of these, to identify your business’s goods and services?
• Have you sold products or service outside your home state?

If you answered yes to the above, next ask yourself:

• Do you want to legally connect your products and services with your brand?
• Do you want to ward off copycats and broadcast to consumers that your unique products and services are yours and not your competitors’?
• After spending time, energy, and money creating trademarks that distinguish your business, are you ready to formalize ownership of your intellectual property?
• Do you want to add teeth to your trademark protection and enforcement efforts?
• Would you rather send a cease-and-desist letter than receive one?
• Are you ready to valuable assets to your balance sheet?

Then let’s get started!

Step 1: Trademark Clearance

Starting at $950

Time to register your trademark? Rebranding? Naming a new product line? This is the first step. We’ll find out who else is out there that does what you do or sells what you sell (or close to it). Then get together (by phone, video or in person) and talk options. The flat fee includes:

• Receipt of a comprehensive trademark search report
• Attorney’s review and analysis of the trademark search report
• Up to 30-minute consultation with an Attorney to discuss

Step 2: Trademark Application Filing

Starting at $750

If the Trademark Clearance gives us a green light for the next step—apply to register your trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This flat-fee includes:

• Collaborate with you to describe all your goods and/or services in language the USPTO will accept
• Identify examples of your trademark in use (another USPTO requirement)
• Strategize in which classes of goods and/or services to apply for registration
• Complete and file the trademark registration application with the USPTO
• Respond to USPTO inquiries and Office Actions, for an additional fee

Additional Trademark Services

• Maintaining your registered trademark (you got it, now keep it)
• Drafting and reviewing trademark licensing documents (give permission for use of your trademark and get paid for it)
• Monitoring trademark usage and enforcing rights (cease and desist, baby)
• Negotiating and drafting co-existence and concurrent use agreements (sometimes sharing is okay if it’s in writing)
• Representing clients in trademark-related disputes (by negotiation, hopefully, but before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, when necessary)

Copyright Law

Developing an artistic or written work or looking to license one? Creative businesses—artists, writers, photographers, bloggers, musicians, app developers, architects, and content creators—can use copyright law to help protect their work from copycats. Copyright protection helps the rest of us, too. If it’s written (on paper or electronically), recorded, sculpted, or fixed in any other tangible way, copyright protection is available. Call on us to evaluate what’s copyrightable, register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office, enforce your rights, and license others to use your work (and yes, get paid for it). Spoiler alert: licensing agreements are tricky. Taking the bundle of rights you own and allowing others to use some or all requires precise definitions and clear language. We’re here to help.