Trademarks are signs, designs, or expressions which identify the source of products or services. They are necessary for a business to establish and maintain their reputation for quality, originality, or any other value. The law protects brand owners against competitors stealing their trademarks. In order to obtain federal protection for their marks, a business must submit a trademark application to the USPTO.
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Applications
An applicant can apply for a “Use” application, which represents the mark as being currently used in commerce, or “Intent to use” application, in which the applicant will have to submit a later showing of the mark’s use.
Registers
If a mark is found inherently distinctive, then it may be added to the primary register. If not, it can be added to the supplemental register. Marks added to the supplemental register gain trademark significance after five years of use or recognition of its use as a trademark by consumers.
Office Actions
A mark may be rejected if it poses a likelihood of confusion with a prior mark based on the similarity between the marks and the good and/or services being sold under the marks. A likelihood of confusion based rejection may be overcome by showing that the confusingly similar aspects are generic and therefore do not merit trademark protection, or that the marks and/or channels of commerce are simply sufficiently different.
A mark may be rejected for being merely descriptive or misdescriptive. It is possible to overcome such a rejection by arguing that the mark is not descriptive or midescriptive, but rather suggestive, fanciful, or arbitrary. A rejection for being primarily merely a surname may be overcome by showing that the use of the mark as a surname is rare and/or that the mark has common meanings other than as a surname.