Brooklyn Startup Lawyer: Protecting Your Brand
Establishing a strong brand is pivotal to the success of your new business. Although selecting and registering your trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is an important first step, you should consider taking additional steps to protect your brand and prevent other parties from hijacking it. At Regina Gordon Law Office, we offer our clients comprehensive brand protection, including trademark selection, registration, maintenance, and renewals.
Some steps you can take to protect your brand include:
- Select a Strong Trademark: The more unique your brand name is, the more memorable it is likely to be. A trademark should not merely describe your goods or services, but should be suggestive or abstract.
- Use Your Trademark: The more you use your brand name, logo or slogan, the more likely it is that customers will remember it, use it and recommend it to others.
- Pre-Emptive Overseas Trademark Registrations: If it is likely that your business could someday enter the global market, you may want to pre-emptively apply for trademark registration in other countries, particularly in China and Europe.
- Subscribe For Trademark Watch Services: These services allow trademark holders to oppose infringing applications in the watched jurisdictions. You should also set up a Google Alert to monitor whether anyone on the web is infringing upon your brand. https://www.google.com/alerts
- Pre-emptively Register Domain Names: In addition to registering your own domain name, you should preemptively register all similar top-level domains. For example, if your trademarked name is “Widgets,” not only should you register Widgets.com, but also Widgets.org and Widgets.net to avoid brand confusion and prevent infringement. You may also want to buy domains that are similar (for example “Wigets.com,” and redirect traffic to your main page. This will prevent other businesses from piggybacking on traffic that should have gone to your site.
- Set Up a Domain Name Watch: By setting up a watch (like a Google Alert) on your domain name, you can prevent cybersquatting. Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is when someone uses your Internet domain name with the bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of your trademark.
- Register With Trademark Clearinghouse and Participate in Sunrise Period Registrations: You may want to register your trademark with Trademark Clearinghouse (TC). TC informs its registrants if an application has been filed for a new top-level domain that includes your registered mark. For example, currently, the new domain names awaiting sunrise launch include .tube and .ltd. If you are registered with TC and someone attempts to register Widgets.ltd, you would be notified.
Brooklyn Business Lawyer Regina Gordon Helps Entrepreneurs Protect Their Brand
Taking steps to protect your brand before it is hijacked is a smart way to insure against headaches down the road. At Regina Gordon Law Office, we help our clients understand the different types of intellectual property protection available for your business and what costs are involved. If you have questions about trademarking your business, we can help. To learn more, contact us at 347-770-7507 or submit an online inquiry today. We serve clients online throughout New York State, including Long Island, New York City (NYC), Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island.