Top FIVE Reasons to Register Your Company’s Trademark

Forbes magazine named its top 10 most valuable global brands with famous names such as Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Louis Vuitton rounding out the list. What do these brands have in common? They would not have become global brands if they had not registered their trademarks and protected their company names.  If your company is poised for growth or is a candidate for scalability or franchising, now may be the time to protect one of your company’s biggest assets and apply for registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Case in point – Twitter v. Twittad.  Since its IPO, Twitter, the microblog of 140 characters, reported an increase of 500 million tweets per day. However, did you know Twitter did not own the trademark rights to the word “Tweet,” thus launching one of the most notable trademark disputes in recent history?  While Twitter launched in 2006, it did not set about registering the word “Tweet” until 2009, long after several other companies, like Twittad, began incorporating “Tweet” into its business name or slogans. Finally, in 2011, Twitter got its Tweet but only after years of contentious litigation and agreeing to a confidential settlement.

Still not convinced you need to register your trademarks? Here are our top five reasons why you should:

1.  Courtroom Advantage. Just like a home team’s advantage, you can have advantage in court by having a federally registered trademark. Federal trademark registration provides you with “legal presumption of your mark nationwide and the exclusive right to use the mark.”  You don’t have to prove you are the owner of the mark in court; it is presumed you are the owner.

2. Asset Protection. Your company name, its products, and/or services are valuable assets that need protecting. While your brand may not yet be global, protecting your mark now ensures that the brand is poised for growth and expansion. Trademark protection allows you to protect company assets from unfair competition, infringement or dilution.

3.  National Recognition. A registered mark will be listed in the USPTO’s database, providing public notice of your claim of ownership to those conducting trademark searches that your mark is taken! Additionally, federal registration safeguards your ability to expand your business in other parts of the nation. For instance, even if you are currently only doing business in the states of California, Oregon and Washington, you can stop other business from filing similarly named companies in geographic areas where you have not yet conducted business.

4.  Domain Name Armor.  Cybersquatters abound on the internet and can infringe on your trademark by registering it as a domain name. Congress passed the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) to make it easier for individuals and companies to take over domain names that are confusingly similar to their names. In April 2013, a US Magistrate judge recommended that Facebook be awarded $2.8 million in its trademark infringement case against multiple domain name holders that engaged in cybersquatting of the Facebook name. The domain names either incorporated or misspelled the Facebook name such as Facebobk.com or Facebookwelcome.com and through the remedies granted under the ACPA, Facebook recovered 105 cybersquatting domain names.

5. Globalization by Foreign Registration.  On a global level, Lady Gaga has been on a rampage to protect her US registered trademarked name through implementation of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. She has been successful in stopping cybersquatters from capitalizing on her fame by filing for domain name infringement and either having the domain name transferred to her (ladygagadress.com) or forcing withdrawal of the domain name (ladyaga.com). Lady Gaga’s global domination would not have been possible without US federal trademark registration. Federal trademark registration in the United States can be used as a basis to obtain registration in foreign countries. With the increasing globalization of American companies and brands, your regional business could one day go national, then international. Preserve your company’s ability to do so by filing a federal trademark registration.

The costs of registering a trademark are nominal in comparison to the costs of losing your unregistered business name or the legal expense of having to protect your unregistered business marks against infringers. If you have any questions regarding registering your company’s marks, please contact our office today.