You’re a ballet dancer and artist entrepreneur, why do you need to know about trademark law?
All entrepreneurs should know about Intellectual Property Laws especially trademark law. Why? In a simple answer, it will help them create a legal protection to the brand they are creating. How? Let’s start with the basics.
What is trademark?
The United States Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO, defines trademark as any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services. It’s how customers recognize you in the marketplace and distinguish you from your competitors.
Let’s close our eyes and imagine that we are going shopping for our ballet pointe shoes. One of the most important instruments for a ballet dancer. Those shoes which we have a love and hate relationship with. You go to the store and there is a wall full of them. How do you know which one are the ones you use? How you differentiate one from the other? The most important elements that differentiate one from the other is the BRAND. This can be the name, for example, Capezio®, Freed®, Gaynor Minden®, just to name a few, or the logo, slogan, among others. As you can see, that is why your brand is so important. A customer will know which one is your product/service by its identifying brand.
What does a trademark do?
The USPTO lists three things a trademark does. These are:
Identifies the source of your goods or services. (This one we discussed above.)
Provides legal protection for your brand. (Will be discussed in a future blog article.)
Helps you guard against counterfeiting and fraud. (Will be discussed in a future blog article.)
Despite many common misconceptions, it is important to note that when you legally register a trademark with the USPTO and own it, what it means is that you own that what is registered for the goods and/or services for which you register them. A good example to understand this is when you have a mark used for various different products and/or services. That is, a brand registered and coexisting in various goods. A concrete example can be the mark DOVE®. There are at least two Dove® brands registered with the USPTO that coexist. Dove® for the chocolates and Dove® for the soap products. These coexist legally because of many reasons, but the primary one is because they identify and distinguish different goods or services. This is permissible by law.
How do I own a trademark?
In the United States, as soon as you start using your trademark associated with your goods/services, you own it. This means that you have some limited rights over it commonly called, common law rights. Now, one of the limitations that this common law rights give you is that they only apply to the geographic area in which you’re providing your goods/services. However, a registered trademark provides you with much more rights and protection than a unregistered one. And believe me, this broader rights and protections are ones that you would want to have.
What rights and protection does a registered trademark have?
The USPTO lists some of the benefits a registered trademark has. These are:
The trademark is listed in the USPTO’s database of registered and pending trademarks. This provides public notice to anyone searching for similar trademarks. They will see your trademark, the goods and services on your registration, the date you applied for trademark registration, and the date your trademark registered.
Legal presumption that you own the trademark and have the right to use it. So, in federal court, your registration certificate proves ownership, eliminating the need for copious amounts of evidence.
Can use your registration as a basis for filing for trademark protection in foreign countries.
Right to bring a lawsuit concerning the trademark in federal court.
May use the federal trademark registration symbol, ®, with your trademark to show that you are registered with the USPTO. This may help deter others from using your trademark or one too similar to yours.
Record your registration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They can stop the importation of goods with an infringing trademark.
“Life without ballet is pointeless.” —Anonymous
Want to know more about trademarks? Stay tuned to our upcoming blog posts.