Speaker 1: Think that getting a trademark registered is the first step in having a successful business? Well, think again. Stick around, because I'm going to tell you three reasons that you should not bother with trademark registration. Hi, everyone. I'm attorney Aiden Durham with 180 Law Co. in Colorado, and you're watching All Up In Yo' Business. Before we get into my three reasons that you shouldn't worry about a trademark, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share, and check the description for links to additional information and resources, including my free, downloadable Introductions to Trademarks Guide, where you'll learn even more about the do's and don'ts of trademarks. All right, so reason number one that maybe you shouldn't worry about a trademark registration for your business is if you aren't committed, 100% committed to that trademark. Whether it's your business name, or your logo, or a slogan, tagline, whatever it is, if you're not 100% committed to that exact trademark, if you're not totally married to it, and vision a long-term relationship with this trademark, then you shouldn't bother registering it with the USPTO. The trademark application and registration process for most applicants takes at least a year or so, and then once the trademark's registered, you can't really go back and change it. So if you have a logo, for example, but you're not that crazy about it, or you think you might modify or change it in some way in the next, I don't know, one to maybe three, four, or five years, then trademark registration may not be that important for you, because if you register it, and then a couple months later decide to stop using that logo and use a different one, that registration isn't really gonna do you any good. Same with your business name. Sometimes, especially when we're first starting a business, we might think this business name really reflects our business, and our brand, and what we're all about, but then a few months, or maybe a couple years down the line, we shift a little bit, and we decide this name doesn't really fit what we're all about anymore. And so again, if you've already registered the trademark for that business name, and you change your mind later on, that existing registration, it does you no good. So if you're not 100% sure that you love your trademark, whether it's the name, or logo, or whatever it is, and if you don't envision yourself using it in your business for the long term, then trademark registration may not be right for you yet. Reason number two, that maybe you shouldn't worry about getting a trademark registration for your business, is if your trademark is on the weak end. Not the weekend, the weak end. Not all trademarks are created equal. There's a scale of strength, very weak trademarks, and very strong trademarks. On the super weak side are primarily generic, or descriptive trademarks. Generic trademarks are ones that just use a generic term, or a generic word for the goods or services that you're selling. If I was selling fruit baskets, for example, and my business name was Apple, Apple would be a pretty generic and weak trademark for that business, because it describes the products that I'm selling, fruit, and it's the generic term for those products. On the stronger end are suggestive, or arbitrary trademarks, where the trademark is either a completely made up word, or it could be just a commonplace term, but it's used for something that has nothing to do with what we're actually selling. So again, if my business name is Apple, but I'm selling technology products, that trademark is pretty strong, because Apple, the common word Apple doesn't actually have anything to do with technology, computers, electronics, so that would be a good strong trademark. I'll give you an example from my own business. When I first started my law practice, I called it the law office of Aiden Kramer, I didn't bother registering that trademark for a couple of reasons. Number one was that it was descriptive, it described what I did. It was a law office, and it used my name, or at least my former name in it. And so a descriptive trademark, where it's merely describing the goods or services that you're offering, again, falls on the weak side of that trademark balancing scale. But the other reason I didn't do it was because I wasn't, ironically enough, I wasn't married to that name. And literally, I wasn't married to that name, because I ended up getting divorced and my name changed. So I was no longer Aiden Kramer. But I got bored of that name. And I knew this probably wasn't going to stick with my business for the long term. And which it didn't, I ended up rebranding and now my law practice is called 180 Law Co, which I do have a trademark registration for because it's not completely descriptive. The Law Co part is descriptive, but the 180 isn't. So you know, it's not super strong, but it is on the stronger end of that spectrum of strength for trademark. So if your trademark is on the weaker end, if it consists primarily of generic or descriptive terms, then trademark registration may not really benefit you yet. Now, a little caveat to that there is this thing called acquired distinctiveness. In a lot of situations, if you have a pretty weak, a descriptive trademark, if you've been using it in commerce for a while, typically it's about five years, or if you can demonstrate to the USPTO that you've built up a lot of distinctiveness in that trademark, despite it being descriptive or kind of weak, then that acquired distinctiveness kind of gets rid of the weak descriptive nature. We see this with things like American Airlines. That in itself is a very weak trademark because it describes exactly what the company does. They're an airline company based in America. So when they first started out, that wasn't a very good trademark. But now we all know American Airlines. It's a distinctive brand now. And so just with that use becoming a recognizable brand, it's become a much stronger trademark. But when you're first starting out, particularly in the first five years or so of your business, if your trademark is on the weaker, more descriptive end, then you may not want to deal with trademark registration yet because it might not do a whole lot for you. And number three, the third reason you shouldn't bother with registering a trademark is if you're not willing and able to enforce the rights that trademark registration is going to give you. Listen, trademark registration is a really important way to protect your brand and your trademark and your brand's goodwill and recognition in the marketplace. But registering a trademark on its own isn't going to do that much for you. It gives you these rights. That's the benefit of trademark registration for the most part is it gives you all these added stronger rights in that trademark, but no one's going to enforce those rights on your behalf. Sure, with the registered trademark, the USPTO, if somebody else files a trademark application for something that's really similar, they might deny that registration if it's confusingly similar to yours. But they don't always do that. And their opinion of what's confusingly similar isn't always exactly the legal opinion of what's confusingly similar. So sometimes they let some slide through that another company might think, no, that is infringing on our brand, on our trademark. And so you have to be ready and able to enforce those rights, which means usually at a bare minimum, sending a cease and desist letter or having an attorney help you with sending a cease and desist letter and at least analyzing the situation to make sure it's appropriate to send a cease and desist letter. You might need to file a petition to cancel a registered trademark or oppose a pending trademark application, which those situations almost always require that you have an attorney help you with it. Worst case scenario, you might have to actually sue somebody for trademark infringement or trademark dilution or some other legal action if they are impeding on your trademark rights. You also have to take steps to actively monitor the marketplace and make sure there aren't any other trademarks out there that might be infringing on your rights. And so if you don't want to, if you don't want to go through the hassle of monitoring trademark applications, monitoring the marketplace, keeping an eye on what else is out there, and or if you don't want to or can't do what's necessary to enforce those rights, then the trademark registration really isn't going to do you a whole lot of good. It's important to go into the registration process knowing that this isn't the end of the line. This isn't going to do everything for you. It will likely be necessary that you'll have to hire an attorney to monitor your brand, monitor your trademark, and hire legal counsel to help you enforce those rights and take action against others when the time comes. So before going into the trademark registration process, make sure you're in a situation where it's really going to benefit you and benefit your business. Because if this trademark may not be with your business for very long, if it's kind of weak and kind of descriptive or generic, or if you're not going to bother with enforcing and monitoring other trademarks and enforcing your rights, then you're really just wasting time and money to get this trademark registered when you could be spending that on something more important like marketing to increase brand recognition. So your trademark isn't so weak. That's all for this episode, folks. Drop a comment below. Let me know what you think. And again, don't forget to check the description for links to additional information and resources, including my free intro to trademarks guide that you can download. And you can also learn about my all-inclusive trademark registration package or my online DIY course called Brandish, which teaches you step-by-step how to apply for and get a trademark registered without a lawyer. Thank you all so much for watching. I'm Aiden Durham, and I'll see you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai