Trademark Attorney Services for Your Lexington Business

Providing Trademark Services for Lexington-based Businesses

Please note that while Gerben IP is not located in Lexington, it can assist businesses from the Lexington region in registering a federal trademark because it is a federal matter.

The trademark attorneys at Gerben IP are known for their experience. Since 2008, Gerben IP has registered thousands of trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and uses that experience to help businesses achieve their goals. The firm’s experienced attorneys can help businesses register and protect their trademarks for reasonable prices that fit into budgets of all sizes.

How many trademarks are filed each year by businesses in Lexington, Kentucky?

Gerben IP collected the following data from the USPTO’s public database.

Why is trademark registration important for Athens of the West business owners?

While Lexington, Kentucky is probably known most as the home of the University of Kentucky, companies like Xerox, Lockheed Martin, and many others have large-scale offices in the area. Whether you are a student, a big business, or a start-up, if you are developing a business, you should protect your trademark rights.

A trademark is a word or design that “represents” a business and tells consumers who is responsible for the product or service. We use trademarks every day to determine quality, price, and other things just by looking at the product’s name. If you need a product quickly, you might think of the trademark “AMAZON PRIME.” If you want on-demand movies, you might think of “NETFLIX.” These types of trademarks are shorthand for a business and help consumers make decisions in the marketplace.

It only makes sense that you set up your business for success by including trademark protection in your business plan and setting a budget to effectively protect your trademarks. The first thing you must do is select a name. It sounds easy, but a lot goes into selecting a name and you have to choose one that you feel comfortable marketing and that isn’t in use by competitors. There is a sliding scale when it comes to how “strong” a trademark is. Generic words (like PLUMBER for plumbing services, or BAKER for baking) can never act as trademarks, because everyone should be able to use those names for their services. Descriptive trademarks (University of Kentucky for education services, Lexington Chimney Sweeps for chimney services) merely describe the goods and services (a University in Kentucky). While these are easier to market, as they immediately provide information about a service, they do not immediately act as a trademark. Instead, companies and organizations using descriptive trademarks have to show that, with time, advertising, and other factors, the descriptive mark now only refers to one source. The next step up is “suggestive” marks, which require the consumer to make a non-obvious connection between the mark and the goods and services (MR. CLEAN for cleaning solutions). These are strong marks but require effective marketing to ensure that consumers are making the connection between the trademark and the products or services offered by the trademark owner. Finally, the strongest marks are either arbitrary in their industry (APPLE for computers) or are made-up, fanciful words (KODAK for film). These are the strongest marks, but are the hardest to market, because consumers do not have a connection with the word within an industry.

Once you’ve selected a name, a trademark professional should conduct a comprehensive search to ensure the name is available. A trademark attorney can review the results of the search and provide a risk analysis on your trademark. Once you know your risk level, a trademark attorney can develop a registration and protection strategy for your unique mark in your unique industry. The attorney can carefully craft your application and see it through to registration, avoiding common pitfalls that many pro se (representing themselves) applicant’s fall into when trying to apply on their own.

After the trademark registration issues and you are using your trademark, you should effectively monitor the marketplace to ensure that no competitors are using a trademark confusingly similar to your own. You should also consider protecting the trademarks for your product lines, individual services, slogans, and any number of other protect able trademarks to build a portfolio.

Lexington, Kentucky is an incubator for talented businessmen and businesswomen. By effecting protecting your trademarks, you will have a leg-up on the competition and will start building a brand that is at the center of your company’s public image.