Trademarks

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Intellectual Property and TechnologyTrademark

Trademarks turn your reputation into a protectable asset. We clear and register marks, manage portfolios across markets, license your brand, and enforce against copycats so your name keeps working for you.

Your trademark is the shorthand customers use for everything they trust about your product, which makes it one of the assets most worth protecting and easiest to undermine through a sloppy launch. We help you pick marks you can actually own, register them efficiently in the U.S. and abroad, and keep the portfolio in good order as your brand grows into new products and markets.

Clearance and Registration

The cheapest time to fix a trademark problem is before you adopt the mark. We run clearance searches, read the results with an eye toward real-world risk rather than just identical hits, and tell you plainly whether a name is worth pursuing. When it is, we prosecute applications before the USPTO and coordinate foreign filings through the Madrid Protocol and national counsel to lock in protection where you do business.

Portfolio Management and Licensing

A trademark portfolio rewards steady maintenance and punishes neglect with abandoned registrations. We track renewal, use-declaration, and maintenance deadlines so nothing lapses, and we keep the portfolio aligned with the brands you actually sell. When you license or franchise your marks, we draft agreements with the quality-control terms that keep the registrations valid and the brand consistent.

Enforcement and Disputes

A mark you do not enforce is a mark you can lose. We monitor for confusingly similar uses and infringing domains, send demand letters calibrated to get results without picking needless fights, and handle oppositions and cancellations before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. When the situation calls for it, we take infringement and dilution claims into federal court and pursue injunctions and damages.

Frequently asked questions

Federal registration gives you a lot that common-law use does not: nationwide priority, a legal presumption that your mark is valid, the right to sue in federal court, the ability to record the mark with U.S. Customs to stop imported knockoffs, and the right to use the registered symbol. Common-law rights only cover the geographic area where you actually use the mark. If your brand matters to your business, registration is usually the better foundation.

USPTO examination usually runs about 8 to 12 months from filing. If an examiner issues a refusal or someone opposes your application, it takes longer. And if you filed based on intent to use rather than actual use, you will not get the registration until you show the mark in commerce, which adds more time.

The more distinctive the mark, the stronger it is. Made-up words like Kodak, or ordinary words used for unrelated goods like Apple for computers, get the most protection. Suggestive marks that hint at the product are still strong. Descriptive marks that just describe what you sell are weak, and generic terms can never be trademarks at all.

No, but you cannot ignore the problem either. If you let infringement go unchecked, your rights can weaken over time. The smart approach is to enforce strategically: focus on uses that actually cause customer confusion or dilute your brand, and do not burn resources chasing every trivial use.

Trademark rights are territorial, so a U.S. registration only protects you in the U.S. The Madrid Protocol lets you file in many countries through a single application, which simplifies the process. We help you decide where to file based on where your business actually operates and what your budget supports.

It is a contract between two parties with similar marks that lets both keep using their marks while staying out of each other's lane. The agreement spells out the boundaries, such as which territories, product categories, or markets each side sticks to, so customers do not get confused.

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