What Amazon Sellers MUST KNOW About The Process Behind Registering a Trademark With The USPTO
Hi, my name is Rebecca. I’m an associate attorney at Rosenbaum Famularo & Segall. I’m here today with my colleague Ashley to talk to you about the process behind registering a trademark with the USPTO.
Ashley – Hi everyone. So today we’re going to talk about the process behind registering a trademark and the best chances of successfully registering that trademark with the USPTO. So Rebecca, why don’t you tell all the sellers, what’s the first step when a seller wants to register their own mark on the USPTO?
Rebecca – So generally we begin this process with a preliminary search of the mark that the seller wants to register. This helps us to determine if there are any marks that are similar or ones that are already pending application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. If this is successful and we don’t find any conflicts, we’ll begin with the application process. But Ashley, I have a few more questions for you. What happens when someone comes to our firm with multiple possible marks and they don’t know which one has the best chance of getting registered?
Ashley – Well Rebecca, that is a great question. So when marks are what we call arbitrary or fanciful, they have the best chances of getting registered with the USPTO. Pretty much, arbitrary marks are those trademarks or service marks that consists of a word or symbol that has nothing to do with the product or service that’s being offered. So an example of this that many sellers may be familiar with is Google, Kodak, or even Exxon. These words are made up words that don’t have anything to do with the products that are at issue.
Rebecca – Great advice, Ashley. Now we can help our sellers come to us with a little bit more insight on the types of marks that they wish to register.