Benefits of a Trademark

Welcome back to the blog! So for this post, when I say trademark, I'm talking about a registered trademark. A registered trademark is a trademark that is registered with the USPTO, the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Okay, let's dive into a few of the benefits of having a trademark.

Amazon Brand Registry

One benefit is that you can get Amazon brand recognition. This has changed names a few times but the last time I worked with somebody it was Amazon Brand Registry. That means that you can get recognition by Amazon that you own a brand. From my understanding, this bumps you up in searches so that is definitely a good thing.

Etsy

When you go to Etsy and you have a registered trademark it gives you some great proof of ownership and, secondly, it can bump you up in selling because you can submit that as proof.

Social Media

This one's huge. There are copycats on social media. Did you know that? People will literally take your name and create fake profiles to look like you. If you have a registered trademark you can submit that proof to Instagram or Facebook and get those copycats taken down.

Register with U.S. Customs

If you register your mark on the United States Patent and Trademark Principal Registrar, you can actually register your trademark with U.S. Customs. The cool thing about this is you can stop other goods from being imported to the United States with your trademark on them. Why is this important? Think about how many goods flood our market every day from foreign countries that have similar branding. You definitely want to stop them.

Monetize Your Name

Finally, another benefit is you can monetize your name. This one I love and I put it last so I can explain it a little deeper. Monetizing your trademark name is a really powerful tool and you might not realize that a lot of businesses you interact with are doing this every day.

Here's a few examples. When you have a registered trademark, you can give someone else a license to use your name and you can get a percentage of the funds for the use of your name. I love this! Why? Because it's creative and it stops you from having to franchise or duplicate your efforts 70 different times.

For example, Trump Hotels. This is a really common thing and you may have heard some of the buzz about it in the last year. People thought when they were buying condos in Mexico and a couple other places with the Trump name on them that they were buying them from the Trump Corporation. Then, when push came to shove, they realized that they were buying them from another corporation that had licensed the Trump name. Now you don't want to be on that end, right? We don't want to do bad business but it's really intriguing because it's protected his assets but still gave him brand recognition. How about that!

Another situation that happened, Craftsman Tools. They would license their name and these tools were no longer made in America. People thought, oh, Craftsmen! And then quality changed and things were different and then they realized this is the license of the name. Now, I don't mean to give you bad examples of where things went south but, the truth of the matter is, there's licensing on names all the time and you just don't see it. We only see it when things happen. The reason why you don't see it until it makes the news is because, a lot of time, with these licensing agreements, we can sign certain things like NDA’s or non-disclosures where the details of the licensing is not disclosed. I can tell you personally, I've worked on these with other businesses and it has paid off in dividends for them. It's a really cool way to grow a business, to create brand recognition, and to keep yourself out of it.

Now, obviously, you want to partner with great businesses and partner with other brands that you can trust and rely upon but it's a really neat way that you can grow and expand. Also, that name, once you build recognition, is its own asset. That's right, a registered trademark can be worth money! I told you about licensing but did you also know you can sell it? Did you know that you can assign it to other people to use? There's a lot of really cool things you can do with this, that there is a great benefit of having a registered trademark. 

Now people also say to me, “None of this applies to me” or “I don't want to do any of these things”, ‘Do I have to register my trademark?” and “Are there really any other benefits?”

I'm going to say yes! By having a registered trademark, it plays offense and defense. You might want some of those other benefits I named—because those are things that can directly impact revenue in and out of your business. Offense and defense are also important and here's why. Offense shows, when you own it, that you're sure you're not verging on anybody else. The registration granted you, by the USPTO, basically gave you a clearance. Now, it's not totally foolproof but I tell people it's a heck of a lot better than wandering out in the wild wild west without anything. It can protect you. Secondly, defense. Like I said, if someone else is using it, you can shut them down. Without a registered trademark, it's really difficult to shut down copycat Instagram, copycat websites, copycat social media. We've also used trademark infringement suits when people would use their mark to kind of have, let's say, a tongue-in-cheek site from a competitor, where they've used someone's trademark to talk a little bit of smack. Well, the way they use it could be a problem and because you have that registered trademark, you might not have enough for defamation but you might have enough to bring a suit on a trademark issue. That's really broad speaking but it's enough to kind of get the juices flowing, if you know what I mean. 

That's a few of the benefits of a trademark. It's ever evolving as our economy changes. As we go more online, we live in this age of information, the benefits of the trademarks get more exponential year after year, month after month. A lot of these things I talked to you about didn't even exist 10 to 15 years ago but now, here we are. In this world that we live in, it is of imperative importance to ensure that you can reap these benefits as your business grows and as you scale.

If we can help you get started on registering your mark, reach out to us at hello@cenglishlaw.com!