🔒How to: Protect your brand by trademarking

Many business and service providers operate for years without considering whether they should trademark elements of their business. The most common way people think of (and see) trademarks are through logos. Think: New England Patriots or Apple. However, a company can also trademark a commonly used slogan, like, McDonald's “I'm lovin' it” or Nike's “Just Do It.” A trademark can be almost anything: a word, logo, sound, shape, color, scent or taste (or any combination of these) that distinguishes the goods or services of your business from another.

Either way, trademarking your company's name, logo, slogan or all of the above will protect it from being used by other entities. One reason why a company might want to protect its logo, for example, is that it wouldn't want consumers to be confused with another logo and accidentally go to another company (which may provide the same goods and services) instead of yours. You surely don't want to allow another company to benefit from any customer goodwill you have worked hard to generate. This is true even if your name, logo or slogan has nothing to do with the industry in which you work. For example, what does an apple have to do with trendy computers? In a way, it makes even more sense to trademark your company's name, logo and/or slogan if those three things are not necessarily indicative of the industry you're in.

Here are some other benefits of registering:

• Can lead to higher sales. Protecting your trademarks is not a mere cost of doing business. It is more like an investment in customer goodwill and name recognition.

• Discourages others from using confusingly similar marks, which could harm your business.

• Protects your business if another business tries to register a confusingly similar mark. If your mark is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the office will prevent others from using your mark at no additional cost to you.

• Grants the right to use the ® symbol on the registered goods or service, putting competitors on notice that you are serious about protecting your rights.

• Grants you legal rights if someone interferes with or tries to use your mark.

If you decide to trademark, should you do it in Maine or throughout the United States? One of the benefits of registering just in Maine is that registration is less costly and generally takes less time. But, Mainers beware: a federal registration carries with it more protection and can trump a trademark that is only registered in one specific state. Here are some things to keep in mind:

If you register on the state level:

• State registration only protects your trademark in the state where you register it.

• Registering with the state is less expensive than registering with the federal register.

• A state registration can usually be processed and approved more quickly than a federal one

• State trademark registration does not give you the right to use the symbol ®. You may use either TM for a trademark or SM for a service mark.

If you register on the national level:

• Your mark is “superior” to state marks. If a federally registered trademark was in use before a state registered trademark, the federal registrant can stop the state trademark owner from using the mark. If the state mark was in use first, the state mark's use may still be restricted to the state where it was registered.

• You can use the ® symbol.

• You can register a trademark with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service to prevent import of infringing products.

• Your trademark will be listed in the USPTO's database. This creates a public record of your mark and may help deter others from using it.

Jordan Payne Hay is an attorney at Skelton, Taintor & Abbott in Auburn. She can be reached at jphay@sta-law.com