How a Trademark Can Benefit Your Arizona Business

The Importance Of Registering Your Business Trademark

Your Arizona business has a lot of intellectual property that sets it apart and helps it succeed. You have a unique business name, and you may have logos, slogans, tag lines, and more. These all become part of your brand, which will become recognizable for its quality and values. If another business uses these things, they can benefit from the careful image you have created for yourself, and they can dilute your brand.

So what can you do to protect yourself? Do you need a trademark? A copyright? A patent? You should start by talking to an experienced Arizona business attorney to understand the appropriate protections and how to get them. Your attorney can help you file the appropriate paperwork or draw up the right contracts.

What Is a Trademark?

A trademark is a specific kind of legal protection that applies only to certain items. Trademarks can be used to protect business names, logos, slogans, and product names. They can also be used to protect words, phrases, labels, and even sounds, so long as they are used in a specific way to identify a business or its products or services. For example, someone can’t trademark the word “do,” but Nike can trademark the phrase “Just do it.”

Getting a trademark helps to protect your intellectual property and your business. The trademark prevents other businesses from using these items or from profiting from them (such as through reproduction of goods with trademarked names or slogans). If someone does use a trademarked item without permission, you will have grounds to sue and get monetary damages. However, you must register a trademark to enjoy most forms of legal protection.

How To Get a Trademark As Soon As Possible

The sooner you can register a trademark, the better. Otherwise, someone else may register it instead, and then you could legally lose the property that you worked so hard to create. Unfortunately, the process of registering for a trademark can be long and tedious, and much can go wrong, so it is important that you work with a Florida trademark attorney who can help you get through the process more quickly and to reduce the risk of making mistakes that could delay or threaten it.

To start, you will need to file an application. To prevent your application from being rejected, you should ensure that the item you want to trademark is specific to your business. If it is too generic or too tied to geography, it will likely be rejected. You should also ensure that the item you want to trademark has not already been registered by another person or business.

It may take several months for your application to be reviewed and processed. Officials will conduct a search to see if the item has been used by another business or is similar to something being used by another business. If the trademark is approved, it will need to be renewed every 10 years. You will also have to file maintenance documents every five to six years to show that it is active. Your Arizona trademark attorney can help you understand all the requirements and can file the necessary paperwork for you.

Trademarking a URL

Web properties are becoming more valuable. Getting a specific URL can be important for a business, yet there are many people waiting to pounce to buy that URL instead or to buy variations of it. For example, consider a URL like www.pfizer.com. It would be very profitable for another person to buy this URL or to buy deviations of it, like pfizer.org or pfizerbiz.com.

Businesses can trademark URLs to protect themselves. Just like other items, the URL has to be specific and unique to the business to be trademarked. More generic names, like food.com, can be trademarked if there is enough brand awareness around it, or it has generated enough sales or ads. A New York trademark attorney can help you understand if your URL would qualify or what other steps you could take to protect it.

Contact An Experienced Business Attorney In Mesa

Call the trademark attorneys at Denton Peterson Dunn today to learn more about your options for trademarking your business property. Our attorneys will review the information and help you understand if they have something that can be trademarked. If you do have property that can be trademarked, we will file the necessary paperwork for you to increase your chances of a successful approval. We can also advise you on copyright and other issues related to protecting your business property. We serve businesses throughout Mesa, Scottsdale, and Phoenix. Call us today to schedule a consultation with a business attorney and learn more.

Brad Denton – Denton Peterson Dunn