C3 Patent and Intellectual Property Law

Oct282009 | Steve O'Donnell

Importance of a Registered Trademark to an Overall Branding Strategy

Do you need to protect your business identity with a registered trademark? That depends on how angry you’ll be if someone else starts using your business name or identifying logos.

For example, imagine that I started selling cans of my Open Source Chili under the brand name “Steve’s Chili” at a local market, and further imagine that the labels on the cans had a unique graphic that made them stand out from other canned foods. How angry am I going to be if I find out that someone else has started selling a “Steve’s Chili” in another state? Will I be angrier if I also discover that they’re using a similar design on their labels? What if I was using a more unique name, would I be angrier if someone else started using it?

What if instead of selling cans of chili I open a restaurant. In that case, I might not care at all if someone across the country uses the same name for their restaurant, but I might care if someone copies the unique graphic I had designed for my signage.

If I was the first to use “Steve’s Chili” as a trademark, even if I don’t register it, I will likely have superior rights to someone else using the same mark, at least in the area where I’m doing business. If I have no plans to grow beyond where I’m already established I might not care if someone a few states away uses the same mark and I might not bother to register a trademark.

A good test is to imagine that a year after you open, someone two states over starts a similar business with the same or similar name and using the same or similar graphics. If that makes a vein pop out of your forehead, you should contact a trademark attorney. If that possibility doesn’t really matter to you or if you’re not doing business across state lines, maybe you don’t need a federal trademark, in which case you should still contact a trademark attorney to discuss the possibility of a state trademark. Even without registration you have certain rights to your trademark, but registration has a number of important advantages you should talk over with your attorney.

If you're not willing to protect your brand, there isn't much point of trying to build one.