Speaker 1: So you want to trademark a brand. First off, I think it's a great idea if you're an e-commerce seller, especially an Amazon seller, to go ahead and to brand your products because it really allows you to differentiate yourself from your competition. And in addition, it's gonna protect your phrase or your brand that you're gonna be trademarking here. So today I'm gonna share with you guys step-by-step how I actually go through the application. You do not need a lawyer. However, it is recommended by United States Patent and Trademark Office. But for me and just being an individual seller, third-party merchant on Amazon, it's sometimes best to go ahead and do this yourself because honestly, it's fairly easy to do so. So today I'm gonna take you step-by-step on some things that we need to do before we start our application. Then we'll get into the application for a golf brand that I'm trademarking and we'll finish it up so you know what to do next. Okay, so the first thing that you have to do before you even get into your trademark application is to understand what your brand is and what are you trademarking. For us today, we are gonna be trademarking the brand of Vibere Golf. It's Italian for To Live Golf. It's a brand I'm gonna be using for some training aides coming up here in Q4 during the holiday season. So there's a link in the description and this is gonna be our trademark, sorry, trademark electronic search system. We are gonna search for that trademark brand and you're gonna be searching on your behalf for your trademark brand to see if someone is actively using it. If someone is actively using your trademark, you cannot use that so you'll have to find a new brand name. So the first thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna go to this section where it says select a search option and we're gonna click this first one where it says new user. Once you click that, there's one thing you have to do on the left here and then we're gonna type in our trademark brand. I usually filter this down to just the live trademarks. I really don't care about the dead trademarks that aren't active and then I'll go down to search term here. So again, ours was Vibere Golf with a space between them. Type in your trademark here. After you do that, click submit query and you're either gonna be brought to a screen where it says there are no records found, which is great. That means that I can use and trademark this brand name as is. Now let's go through an example where we do find. So I'll just type in Vibere, live trademarks. And as you can see, there are a lot of live trademarks just with the Vibere name in them or by itself. So if you come across here and you see a lot of trademarks that have the existing brand name that you want to use, odds are that you cannot use that. I mean, you could go into each one of these and see what class they are trademarked under, but it's really gonna take a lawyer to come in here and fully understand if you can or cannot do it. My word of advice is if you have all of these listed here for your trademark name that you want to use, go ahead, find something different and it isn't the end of the world. So for us, when we searched it for Vibere Golf, it was not located on here. So that's assurance that I can go ahead and proceed with my application and I can make sure that it gets submitted and approved. Next, we need to go and figure out if we're gonna be doing a logo for our trademark or if we're just gonna do basic text. So I want to do a logo that has this cursive like text. It's Dr. Defoe text. So I'll be doing a logo for this demonstration. For you, if you really don't care if it's the design of the trademark itself, you can just do a basic formatted text and you don't have to go through this entire process. However, if you do want to do a logo, make sure you use some type of software to create it like this. And then you're gonna want to save it as a JPEG file. I'm using Canva.com, great free online software that you can use. You can go ahead and create free logos such as this simple one right here. Make sure that you save it in a JPEG format because that's the only format that they will accept. And then you want to make sure that your file size is under, I believe it's 944 pixels on either side. As you can see, this is a thousand by a thousand. It's too large. So we need to reduce that down to 500 by 500. I think the minimum is 250 by 250. So just make sure you're within that and turn the quality up. And then I will save this and download it to my downloads folder. All right, so that's step two. We're almost there to the application. Step three and the final step before we can actually get into the application and please do these steps because it's gonna save you time. The last thing you want to do is submit an application and it gets denied by the government because you didn't follow some of these steps or you didn't do your due diligence that you need to. Next, we are gonna be searching the trademark ID manual. So this manual is an assortment of all these classes that are filed in services on behalf of people like us and companies. Now we need to search this because in order to decide if we are gonna go with the TEAS plus or the TEAS standard application, two different applications, we need to make sure that there is a class that's out there that relates to our product. If there isn't a class that relates to our product, we're going to go with the more expensive option which is the TEAS standard and it's about $350 per class or service. So let's say that you have a brand where you are selling wallets. You go ahead, you fill out this application, you get your trademark for that specific class. Now that does not mean that you can go and use your brand name to sell stereo equipment or lights because that trademark is only eligible in that class or service. So that's one thing to keep in mind is that you're only trademarking within a specific narrow niche per se and that's one thing you have to keep in mind when you're going about this. So in here, what you want to type in is what your product is. So for us, it's gonna be a golf training aid. I'm just gonna type golf training to see what we have. So you can see a bunch of different classes come up. Do not pay attention to the ones that are strikethroughed and then just focus on the ones that relate to your product. So we're going through these. It's a golf training cage. That would not relate to my putting device that I'm creating. The next one, golf practice platforms. It's a golf apparatus. That would work for what I'm doing but I'm gonna take a look at the rest of them just to make sure. This third one down here, a motorized golf tripping practice aid. Nope, mine is not motorized and it's not a brace that will be worn on the hand. So if you type this in and you can try a couple of different searches, maybe golf aid next, but if you find one, that's good news. You don't have to really remember this yet because you will search this later on the application. But if you search this and you couldn't find anything or anything that related to your product, you're going to have to go through the Tees standard application. All right, so at this point, we've completed all the due diligence steps that we need to. We ensure that our trademark is not actively listed. We created our logo if we wanted to. And then lastly, we found a class and a description that fits what we're trying to brand here. Next, go down to the links in the description and go to the actual application link. So now we're going to actually get started with the Tees and Tees Eye application. First, you need to go to this green button here where it says set up your USPTO.gov account if you don't already have one. So we'll click that and I should already be logged in. Now, after you've actually created your account, it's very simple. Just type in personal information. And then once you create your account, you'll have to verify your email address and then you'll be brought to this dashboard. It's very easy what to do next. All you have to do is go to this file an application and click file a Tees application. Now, this is the actual application and we're gonna go step-by-step through it with that golf brand that I'm looking to trademark. Now, you don't have to read all this text because you're just gonna follow the video and I've already done it for you. So the first question is, please select one of the filing options. You've heard me say Tees Plus and Tees Standard. Remember, if you're doing a Tees Plus, that means you were able to find a class and description that fits what you're trying to brand and what you're trying to sell. For us, that's what we'll do. However, you're gonna do Tees Standard if you couldn't find something that relates to your actual trademark. And do not try to bend the rules here. A lawyer is gonna look over your application and if they see that there isn't an actual class in goods that's already existing in the ID manual, they're gonna reject your application and tell you to file Tees Standard anyways. So it's not an opportunity to save money. It's really just the luck of the draw for you. And the second question, is an attorney filing this application? No, I am not an attorney. And you're gonna notice here saying, we recommend you review these basics before completing your application. Does not say that you can't do this because you're not an attorney. Save some money and you can do this by yourself. This is an optional third one here when you do not have to actually go ahead and complete this. Next, click continue. And this is where you're gonna describe your ownership and who the applicant is. Now, I am just the single person that is filing this application. Say you have a partnership with a couple of different members for your business. You wanna include everyone on here that needs to be. And you're gonna be able to do that at the bottom. You can add multiple owners. So for the owner of the mark, I'm gonna type in my name here. So I'll say do in the format of last name, comma, first name, middle initial. So I'm gonna type my name in. If you're doing business as another business, such as an LLC, as I will be, I will type in that business here. And then down to the left here, I'm gonna select the entity type for my business. For me, it's a limited liability company. And you need to select the state that your business is legally filed under. Okay, next we'll skip down here to your mailing address. Keep in mind, this is gonna be public. It's gonna be viewable by anyone looking through this database. So if you do not want your address being publicly viewed, I would go ahead and get a PO box just to protect that so you're not receiving spam mail or having anyone creepy show up at your house. So type in your address here. Okay, and then we'll leave this checked. Phone number, you don't have to put anything in here. Fax number, you don't either. And then just put in your email address. All right, so at this point, once you have all your required information in here, you can go ahead and click continue. If you do have more than one owner, click add owner, and that will add this first person, and then you can add the second, third, and so forth. Once you've added all of the owners, click continue. Now, since we did not put in a telephone number, you're gonna get a warning message. It's only a warning. It's not a requirement. So if you want to go back and add your telephone number so an examining attorney or someone can contact you, you can do so. I'm just gonna click continue. I do not like to have my number out there just for the sake of that. Okay, and the next step is our actual trademark where we're gonna upload our logo or we're just gonna type in our standard character text if you do not have a logo. So the question you're gonna answer down here is to select a radio button to indicate a mark type. Standard characters, again, that's just like plain text. So this would be my trademark if I were to do plain text. That's all it would be, right? There's no design to it. I'm gonna do a special form which is stylized or design or better known as a logo. So now we're gonna actually upload our trademark, our logo that we saved beforehand. Again, they say to save it in a JPEG image file. It's only an acceptable format. Some other things, if you're gonna trademark colors, make sure you upload the color format. Otherwise, black and white is fine. For us, we just had black text. So we really don't have to worry about the colors. And all you do now is go to choose file and click the one. Let me make sure I click the right one here. It says top one. So you click that and make sure you click attach because that's something I did first couple of times I tried doing this. You get to the end and you never clicked attach. So this actually attaches it to your application. At that point, you should see your trademark brand, your logo right here. Just ensure that it looks correct. It's gonna be a little bit distorted because it's very small there. But that's it there. Now at this point, you need to type in your literal element, which is down below here. Type in exactly what your trademark says. You have to do this just in case, the examining lawyer, they try to examine this and they couldn't tell if this was a W or a V or if the G was something else or if there wasn't a space. So just type in the text if there is text for your logo and put that there. Okay, and moving down here, if you're claiming any colors as a part of this logo, then you have to make sure you enter them here. This only applies if you have colors that are not black and white. So for us, we're gonna go down below here where it says check this box if you're not claiming a color. This is really only for black and white images. Now what you would do here, say this was a red V and a blue G. We want to indicate that here. So we'd put red and blue. So we wanna make sure that both of those colors are actually a feature, a color feature of our trademark. But since we're just doing black and white, we'll leave those out of there. Next, we have to add some more descriptive elements to our trademark to describe what is going on. Now, if you have something that's very complicated or an actual logo without text, you wanna indicate all the different colors and the unique aspects of that logo. So for down here, here's a good example. If we had some logo with a bird with different colors on it, we type in a bird with a red body, blue wings and yellow beak if that described our trademark logo. Make sure that you start this field without an uppercase letter. Keep it all lowercase format and do not start out with like a full sentence like you would, this mark consists of or this trademark resembles this. Just type in exactly what it is. Vivere golf, all black. We'll just put color. Okay, so that describes it there. After that, you can click continue and you'll be taken to the next screen, which is actually adding your trademark to a specific goods or services. Now, this is gonna look very similar. Once we click this add good services, it's gonna take us to the ID manual search. It looks a little different than what we did here, but it's gonna be the same thing. So I'm gonna type in the same thing I typed before, golf training and click go. Again, we found all the different descriptions and classes of good international classes here that relate to this golf training search term. As you remember before, if we jump back, this was the one that I wanna trademark it under. It's a golf training apparatus, golf practice platforms. So we'll head back to the application here and then you'll select the class golf training apparatus, namely golf practice platforms. For this tutorial, we are just gonna be doing this single class. So we'll click insert checked entries and down at the bottom here, you're gonna see the classes that you are registering your trademark under. The last thing to do on this page is to assign a filing basis for this international class, which is gonna be shown down here. So you're gonna claim, is it section 1A, 1B, 44D, 44E. And it's very convenient because I'm glad they put these under here so you can better understand what this actually means. So if you're actually using your mark in commerce currently right now, which believe it or not, you are allowed to do if you just put the TM on it, you can do that if it's not actively used, you're gonna click 1A because you're using it in commerce right now. For this brand, I'm not using it. I'm not selling any products under it right now. So I'm gonna do 1B, which says no use of mark yet, but you're intending to use. The other two here, they're for foreign applicants. It's the same thing as section 1A, 1B, but it's for foreign applicants. So for us, we are not using the mark yet in commerce. So we're gonna do section 1B. Now it's gonna ask us to understand this and click I understand and click assign filing basis. And at this point, just verify that when you click there, the section 1B pops up next to that class of goods. If you had multiple, you could just select the ones that you want to file under and say you are using the Gulf apparel actively right now in commerce, then you'd want to select that class and click 1A. All right, simple as that. We'll click continue. And then we brought to this next page, which is your correspondence information. You shouldn't have to do anything at this page. Just verify that your name is correct and also your email there for the primary email address. Click continue. So now is the part that we all hate because you actually have to go ahead and you have to pay for this to be filed and then also sign off your name for this trademark brand. Again, it's gonna be $250 per class if you do the T's plus, and it's gonna be $350 if you do the T standard per class. Just something to keep in mind. You're gonna have to pay some money, but if you do have a business, you can write this off your taxes as it is tax deductible. So confirm that that's correct and you don't have maybe two or three classes and you only wanted one. So we were only doing one. The amount is correct, 250 per, and then we're gonna sign directly. You can hand write it and mail everything in, or you can just do it directly on here electronically. So you'll have to go through all this. You'll have to read the following statements. I've already done this before and select all of them. Next, we'll come down here to actually sign the application. Make sure you pay attention to this because it's very weird whenever you do the signature. It's requiring you to put two forward slashes between your name in all lowercase. So put a forward slash, type in your name, and then close it with another forward slash. I guess because it's alphanumeric, I honestly have no idea why you have to do that, but it's just something that they require. For the names down here, you do not have to do that. You can just type in your name as is. And then for the position, I am the owner of my company. So I'll put owner in. If you have a formal role for your company that you work in, make sure you put that there, or you can just type in individual. For date sign, just click it. It'll auto-populate. Make sure that's the correct date. And then go down to the bottom here. If you have more than one owner that needs a sign, click the add right here. You can add them just like we did to add owner before. If not, if it's just yourself like we're doing here, click validate. Okay, and once we've done that, we are basically completed with the application. We've completed all the mandatory fields. The USPTO website is just gonna ask us to go ahead and to review everything to make sure that's correct. Do not be lazy. Make sure that you review everything because this is your one shot of branding this. You don't wanna waste any money, trust me. So go down through all these steps. Go through all the data just to confirm that your name's right, the trademarks looks correct, the logo's correct, the description's there. All of the above, check everything. And once you do, you can go ahead and you can go through all these checks. You can check this right here. It just goes over the payment information and go down to step five where it says if you're ready to file electronically, click on pay and submit. So this is the final step. Once you click pay and submit, you'll be brought to the screen where you'll input your credit card information or whatever you're using to actually purchase this filing. All right guys, thank you for watching. I hope this gives you more insight on what to do when filing your trademark application. It can seem very daunting, especially with all the little nuances like the signature there at the end, but you do not need an attorney. If you do wanna go ahead and get an attorney, I do recommend doing the Amazon IP Accelerator Program. It's a little more expensive, but that way you make sure you get it done correctly the first time.