Archives: Trademarks

When you’re trying to register a trademark for apparel in the U.S., there are some specific requirements. In my experience as a transaction-based intellectual property attorney, many clients who are starting an apparel brand don’t know these requirements, and it can lead to trouble. The key issue is that in order to protect and register a trademark in the U.S., you need to be able to show that the mark has been used in interstate commerce in connection with the goods in the application. For some kinds of products, simply having the trademark (brand name or logo) appear on the…

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Congratulations – you’ve successfully obtained a trademark registration from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Now you might be asking, how long will this trademark registration last? And what do I need to do to keep it alive? The first bit of good news is that trademark registrations can last forever. For example, COCA-COLA has been a registered trademark for “BEVERAGES AND SYRUPS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF SUCH BEVERAGES” since January 31, 1928, and they’re still going strong. However, you will need to renew your trademark registration periodically. Here are the deadlines and filings that you need to…

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So you’ve discovered that someone is infringing on your trademark. Now what do you do? My clients often find that some other person or business is infringing on their trademark rights. They’re then faced with deciding what to do about it. Ownership of a trademark (whether or not it’s been registered with a trademark office such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office) gives the owner, in many cases, the right to prevent competitors from using an identical or confusingly similar mark. By “trademark” or “mark”, I’m referring to anything that identifies you as the source of your goods…

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A recent article in the New York Times detailed Apple’s aggressive approach to trademark protection. The headline didn’t hesitate to call Apple out for bullying, and I think that’s the right term to use. The article begins with a story of “one of dozens of entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporations that Apple has gone after in recent years for applying to trademark names with the word ‘apple’ or logos of stemmed fruit.” It goes on to note that “Apple has frequently targeted entities that have nothing to do with tech or that are infinitesimal in size. It has even set…

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