Your trademark is integral to your brand. It provides invaluable assets and builds customer loyalty. When trademarking your word, symbol, or phrase, you protect your business’s intellectual rights and properties from infringement. This also helps you identify yourself to your consumers, letting them know who is providing the product or service. So, the question arises, do you need an attorney for trademark registration?
The simple answer is yes. Although you don’t legally require an attorney, we recommend hiring one. Why? To save time, money and effort. Opting for professional advice and assistance from an attorney gives you the best chance of having your application accepted. Your attorney will ensure that all legal requirements are fulfilled. Let’s discuss the difference between registering a trademark yourself and hiring an attorney to do it for you.
Registering a Trademark Yourself
Registering for a trademark to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been explained and instructed on the USPTO’s website. Thus, applicants can fill out the application and register themselves. Simple, right? No. Registering a trademark yourself can lead to errors and complications that will result in a rejected application.
For instance, you need to search extensively for currently registered trademarks to ensure you’re not overlapping. You also need to apply the right class or classes of goods depending on your product and service on the application to benefit from the appropriate rights and protection. If you mis-enter your fields, you will not be able to change them later on, thus wasting your time and money.
Registering a Trademark Through Attorney
Hiring an attorney will give you a better chance of securing a trademark than doing it yourself. The trademark registration process is complex and requires legal proceedings and documents; errors can lead to application rejection. Thus, after deciding on a business name, hiring an attorney before ordering product packaging is the best move.
An attorney will help prepare your application, advise you on your trademark’s registration, do an extensive trademark search, monitor the application process, and respond to the USPTO on different actions and requirements. Thus, instead of consulting an attorney later when things go south, you can hire them from the beginning and save time.
Benefits of Hiring an Attorney
There are multiple benefits of hiring a lawyer and seeking professional help, especially where your business’ rights are concerned. Let’s talk about them.
- Attorneys advise you on your trademark registration. For instance, they know which words or symbols are likely to get accepted and have a lower risk of infringement.
- After deciding on a trademark, attorneys conduct a thorough trademark clearance search to ensure there isn’t any similar or exact trademark as yours. Applicants can do it themselves, but legal websites are limited and show only exact matches, whereas applications are also rejected on similar matches and the likelihood of confusion.
- Attorneys help prepare your application and ensure all fields are filled accurately and the products and services are correctly classified.
- Attorneys submit your application and monitor the legal proceedings.
- They respond to office actions by the USPTO and enforce and maintain your trademark rights.
Now that you know why you need an attorney for trademark registration, we hope you make the sensible choice. An attorney helps you save time, money, and effort and increase the chances of application acceptance. Reach out to Trinity Trademarks. Their team of tax lawyers and expert representatives have years of experience in trademark registration, clearance search, and legal proceedings. Call now to book a consultation.