Trademarks

Trademark Law: Protecting Your Company’s Good Will

If you have worked hard to establish your company or product name, logo, or slogan, you will want to prevent anyone else from damaging your reputation or taking away your business through the unauthorized use of your name. The way to do that is through the use of a registered trademark.

Trademarks are available under state and federal law, as a means of protecting your products’ and company’s name and reputation – your “good will.” Trademarks are available for a variety of product-related expressions: company name, product name, logo, design, slogans … in some instances, companies have even been able to trademark colors, sounds, and smells!

Rights in trademarks in the United States come from usage, not from registration. Nonetheless, there are many good reasons to register your mark with the U.S. Trademark Office, in addition to filing with the state Secretary of State. To obtain a registered trademark, you must file an application with the state or federal trademark office. To qualify for registration, a trademark must be either inherently distinctive (for example, made-up words like Zagnut or Lexus) or have acquired secondary meaning (for example, The Club). You may obtain a trademark on a name that is actually in use or one that you actually intend to use, however, the law requires that actual use be made within three years of the allowance of the application. Once a trademark has been registered, it may be kept alive forever, provided it is actually used and that all renewals are properly and timely filed (renewals must be made every ten years, but also there is a special filing during the sixth year after issuance that must be made or else the trademark will be cancelled automatically).

Care needs to be taken that your registered mark does not become a common term to describe all products within a certain industry. The terms Rollerblade, Thermos, Kleenex and Xerox are all registered trademarks, but all have been in danger of falling into the public domain and being transformed into the generic names for their respective products. “Aspirin” and “frig” are prior trademarks that have fallen into the public domain and no longer may be protected for exclusive use for their respective creators.

Hankin Patent Law has extensive experience prosecuting trademark registrations. We know how trademarks are reviewed and issued and can counsel our clients to select marks that will likely obtain federal protection.

Marc Hankin and his Associates also have litigated a great number of trademark infringement actions on behalf of our clients.

For example, Mr. Hankin successfully helped an agency of the United Nations enforce its acronym against a commercial entity that attempted to misappropriate that acronym as its commercial trademark. Mr. Hankin also has acted as California counsel for the Automobile Association of America and Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, Inc. to police their famous trademarks (“AAA” and “3M”) against multiple infringers. Marc E. Hankin has long represented Rin Tin Tin, Inc., and he and his Associates have registered several marks for that client, as well as negotiating several licenses, and have successfully defended the client in litigation against someone who tried to usurp the mark.

Contact Hankin Patent Law for vigorous protection for your trademark.