Although registering a trademark is theoretically easy to do, nonetheless you should really consult professionals before you do it. Federal trademark registration, after all, is nothing to be taken lightly. Your intellectual property rights will be in jeopardy if you do not register a trademark correctly. It is possible to do the research on your own, and file your own trademark, but that can be a bad idea. I know. I've been there.
You see, I thought I could do my own federal trademark registrations too. I came up with a brilliant new invention – I can't tell you about it because it is still in litigation. I had very little money to invest in it, but I knew it would do very well. After doing my own federal trademark registration, I took it before a group of investors. They seemed rather impressed when they first saw it, but inexplicably they decided they were not going to fund it. In about six months, however, I saw a very similar products on the market. This product, in fact, was funded by the same group of investors! Needless to say, I was furious and decided to take them to court.
When I got to court, however, I found out something chilling. My federal trademark registration had holes in it. Because I had not used a trademark registration firm, I had not created an airtight registration. By making a few simple changes to my product, they believed that they had won the right to produce it themselves. Although the verdict is still not in, it would have been better to not have to go through the hassle in the first place. If I had gotten a decent federal trademark registration firm to help me out, I would have been able to successfully market my product by this point. As it stands now, I am in danger to losing it to a group of thieves!
Although it is not recommended, many take the risk of relying on a common law trademark. theoretically, federal trademark registration is not necessary. It is highly recommended, but you can get by without it. If you can prove that you thought of, and produced a product before anyone else, it belongs to you. Nevertheless, this is a bad idea. It is very difficult to prove this kind of thing without documentation. Federal trademark registration gives you the documentation. Making sure that you register your products makes everything a whole lot easier!
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