Business owners invest a lot in their good name. As a business grows, consumers learn to trust a company’s name to provide quality products or services. To protect that investment, you should consider registering your company, service or product name as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The protection of a federally approved trademark can help you fight competitors that pop up with similarly named companies, products or services. As new businesses sprout and expand every day, it’s easy for a competitor to innocently infringe on your intellectual property. Less scrupulous business owners might try to piggy-back on the success of your good name to steal your customers. Regardless of their intentions, you need to know that you can legally defend your name.

If you decide to register the name of your company, services or goods, Gerben Law Firm is ready to help you apply for the broadest amount of protection available. To determine the likelihood of your trademark receiving approval from USPTO, Gerben Law Firm conducts a thorough trademark check to help you minimize the risk of suffering a trademark rejection. USPTO has a team of trademark examiners who pick through each application in search of flaws. They also analyze other registered trademarks to ensure that you’re not infringing on someone else’s rights. If USPTO rejects your trademark name registration, you will lose your application fee and have no legal foundation to contest the use of your name in commerce.

To help avoid a trademark rejection, you should consider the personalized, in-depth services offered by Gerben Law Firm. The firm’s Trade Mark Search expertise can help you make a wise decision about your trademark name registration application and the viability of your name in commerce. As part of the firm’s services, trademark attorney Josh Gerben leads a detailed Trade Mark Search of federal databases to look for existing matches. He also digs up similar trademarks within your industry that the USPTO examiners might flag. You should be prepared to justify the use of your name if you choose to pursue a trademark that is similar to existing ones. The Gerben Law Firm can help you form a persuasive argument if USPTO sends you a trademark rejection.

If you opt for Gerben Law Firm’s comprehensive Trade Mark Search process, trademark attorney Josh Gerben also will conduct a state trademark search and a “common law” trademark search. Even if a company has not registered a name with USPTO, it can receive some legal protection in state and local courts. To avoid potential court costs in the future, Josh Gerben will do a common law trademark check that involves a comprehensive search of business sources. After completing the Trade Mark Search, he compiles a full report for you to review. After reviewing his opinion on the results, you can discuss the trademark check results at any time. The common law results can produce insightful business intelligence for your company. You might discover a competitor in your region or across the country that you did not know existed. You also might find out that a company in an entirely different industry is offering a service or product by the same name. That type of information can help you better tailor a marketing campaign that is likely to attract customers to your company.

If you decide to move forward with your trademark name registration application (learn about registration), the Gerben Law Firm, PLLC is ready to assist you through the USPTO trademark filing process. The agency provides online forms that anyone can complete, which is a tempting offer for cost-conscious business owners. However, because USPTO’s examiners will be reviewing every detail of your trademark application, you need to be sure that it is complete and accurate to minimize the risk of receiving a trademark rejection. Trademark attorney Josh Gerben can handle the entire submission process for your trademark name registration, guiding you through the final steps. You also can opt to have USPTO deal directly with the Gerben Law Firm on subsequent questions pertaining to your trademark registration.

The entire process for filing a trademark is time-consuming (see here). To avoid risking a trademark rejection from USPTO, you must complete a detailed Trade Mark Search. Retaining a trademark law firm can save you from the aggravation of navigating such a trademark check on your own. In addition, Gerben Law Firm can give you the best chance possible of completing a successful online trademark application. If questions arise, the firm’s trademark attorney can help you make the best possible response. In the end, if you’re trying to decide whether a trademark attorney is worth the investment, you should consider whether it’s worth it to save hours — potentially days or weeks — of your time for other tasks more closely tied to your business.