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TradeMark Express Discovers McCain
Winning '08 Presidential Trademark Race

Obama for America logo design mark.
Read entire article here.

You've decided to go into business! You've done your research into your industry, break even, advertising staffing job descriptions, equipment, site, etc.

You have your business plan written, funding secured and a new name, slogan and logo design in mind.

You checked the Internet for use of your new name. You didn't see anyone else using your exact business name, slogan or logo. Now, you are all set to go, right?

Wrong! If you have not hired a legal research company or attorney to conduct a comprehensive search of your intended business name, slogan and logo design, then you cannot know with true certainty whether your intended intellectual property is truly legally available.

Without certainty, going ahead with a fully researched name can be the most expensive decision you will ever make if you ever have to change your intended business name, slogan or logo.

A common mistake many new business owners make is assuming that their business name is legally available simply because:

The domain name looked available.

The fictitious name looked available.

The corporate name looked available.

Internet research looked available.

Yellow page research looked available.

These are merely preliminary indications of which business names, service names, and product names are out there. Only comprehensive research will tell you if a name is truly available for legal use.

The problem is that it is impossible to access all possible business name records on only free sources because similar names affect your legal use as much as exact conflicts. Paid databases must be researched also to find new, similar and hard to find usage.

If another company does actually have existing intellectual rights, then they have up to 6 years to find your illegal use and order you to cease and desist.

The first step is a comprehensive search of the pending and registered Federal and State trademark files. The search should look for similarities in Sound, Appearance and Meaning, which means looking at synonyms, spelling variations, word placement, translations etc. Similarities matter!

The second step is a comprehensive search of U.S. National Common-Law databases. This entails searching all 50 States incorporation records, all fictitious name/DBA records, industry databases, product announcements, newspapers, company directories, etc, etc, etc.
TradeMark Express researches over 6500 paid databases to make sure prior use does not exist. Then we file at the USPTO.

Having a trademark will achieve added protection against other companies' future names, slogans or logos that are conflicting or even merely similar in sound, appearance or meaning, as well as ownership rights as protected by the USPTO. Having a trademark makes it much easier to protect your intellectual property, when you can simply show your registered or pending USPTO trademark.

A trademark is like having a silent attorney actively protecting your intellectual property 24 hours a day! Trademarks last 5 years, and are indefinitely renewable in the 5th year, then the 10th year, then every 10 years after that. You still need to actively protect your intellectual property, because the USPTO will not do that for you. We offer a monitoring service or we recommend that you should run your comprehensive research every 2 years to find infringing companies to your property.

"If Your Trademark Research Isn't Comprehensive - Then It Isn't Done!"®