Trademarking

[Adam]

Does anyone have any experience with registering trademarks?

 

[accelerator]

I have regged one myself. I just looked at the wording of trademarks for similar businesses, and made a trademark application for a single class as I wanted to keep costs down. There was a bit of form filling and I designed and submitted a logo.

I wouldn't class myself as a trademark expert however by any means, I just decided to do it myself for cost reasons.

Rgds

 

[Adam]

So I assume it went through okay doing the form yourself and paying just the fee? I thought it might have been a mine field and was considering whether or not it was better to pay an IP lawyer to file it for me.

 

[accelerator]

A member of staff queried a few things in the wording via e-mail, but I was able to speak to them and amend it, and the Trademark got registered.

I think to a certain extent whether you decide to do it yourself depends on how critical your Trademark is going to be to your business. I'm sure there is the potential for things to turn into a minefield down the line, and I'm sure that an experienced Trademark lawyer would help you avoid them, but for me I was happy to do things myself and learn about the process. If you asked me now whether I need the Trademark, I'd say maybe not, as I own all the critical domain extensions for this term, and since then I've bought some better domains for the particular type of website the trademark relates to, but it was a good learning experience for me.

Rgds

 

[accelerator]

... One other thing ... my Trademark is pretty comprehensive, because I read all the Trademarks for similar web business, and took a lot of their wording and incorporated it into my application. You can see from other Trademarks the way things are worded. I just took the view, let's stick it in and see if it gets accepted ... and it did.

My Trademark relates to a web business and it was just to create additional protection around the domain. For "real world" businesses maybe there would be more issues.

Rgds

 

[Adam]

So I assume you you went for Class 35?

 

[accelerator]

So I assume you you went for Class 35?

Yes I did.

Rgds

 

[GreyWing]

From what I have read on the issue, I think that you pay for a good trademark lawyer not to get a trademark issued, but to file it in such a way that will protect it if it comes under challenge later on.

However most never do and can be filed by average members of the public to keep costs down.

 

[Adam]

Okay guys, thanks very much. I'll look into getting it filed myself, and will read up on some pre-existing trademarks as a basis.