Trademark Renewal & Maintenance - How Do I Keep My Trademark?

After you?ve applied for your trademark, there will be a waiting period of approximately 18 months before your name is actually registered with the United States Patent & Trademark Office (herein referred to as the USPTO). Until then, it will be listed as "Pending." Sometimes there are hold-ups; the USPTO may not allow you to use the name you?ve chosen to apply for because there is a similar name already trademarked. In this case, you will receive an "office action", which is a notification from the USPTO. If you do receive an office action, it might be due to the USPTO simply needing more information in order to complete your trademark application. However, it also may be because your name is blocked by another name, which is the worst case scenario, and another reason why it is incredibly important to purchase comprehensive research before you file for your name!

After your name is registered with the USPTO, between years 5-6 you will file a "Continuous Use Form." This form conveys to the USPTO that you have been using your trademarked name, and you intend to continue to stay in business or to sell your product under that name. After a 10 year period, you will be required to renew your trademark. It is important to be aware that some maintenance is involved in keeping your trademarked name.

It is recommended that each year you commission research on your name. This is done to ensure that no one has begun using your name since doing initial research on its availability. By continuing to do annual research, you are adding a greater sense of protection for your name and business. It is up to you to remain informed on what businesses are using what marks, and how this might affect your own personal business ventures.

Once trademarked, you may take legal recourse if another business has begun using your name. A "cease and desist" letter is a way of conveying to another business that they are infringing upon your trade-name. While you do not need a trademark in order to draw up a letter such as this, having a federally registered trademark gives you a greater ability to disallow the use of your name by another. These documents should always be drawn up by an attorney, rather than an individual, as the action conveys that you are taking legal recourse against another business. Please communicate with the USPTO directly, a trademark attorney OR a trademark research company if you have more specific questions about maintaining your trademark!

Marit Lee is a Researcher for TradeMark Express. Since 1992, TradeMark Express has met the needs of their clients with comprehensive research, application preparation, attorney referrals and trademark consultation. For further details, please visit us on the web at TradeMark Express or call Marit directly at 800.550.1520.

Types of Patents Granted by the USPTO

Inventions may qualify for a utility, a design or a plant patent as set out by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This article attempts to provide you with an overview on each of these patent types.

Examples of utility based inventions are everywhere. Most mechanical objects fit under this category. A rocket engine, paperclip and a new drug are all examples of utility based inventions. The variety between these objects is vast, but they all fit under the same category; those with utility.

Design patents are those that incorporate a design into an object of manufacture. A good example is a new design for a headboard.

As you can guess, plant patents are those covering new plant varieties. But there are some stipulations with plant patents. Plants that have been bred are acceptable, while plants growing naturally in the wild will never qualify. Oddly enough, plants that are sexually reproduced also never qualify. Only those that are asexually reproduced (i.e., they are reproduced by making a cutting, layering, grafting or inarching) qualify for a patent.

 Lisa Parmley - Registered Patent Agent Review free articles on inventing and patenting: Patent Your Inventions

Free Patent Search Information and tips

Free Patent Search Training in Free Patent Database online

The first step to find out if you invention can be patented is to conduct a free patent search online in any free patent information database online. How can you do a free patent search to find out if your invention can be patented?

Some of the most popular free patent databases in the world are http://www.uspto.gov, http://ep.espacenet.org, http://www.wipo.int and http://www.surfip.gov.sg.

We will briefly discuss in this article how you can conduct a Free Patent Search in USPTO database. This is the first of the seven articles that we will write to teach any one to use USPTO website to conduct patent search.

USPTO database contains over 33 million patent documents and is updated every week. The website is probably the largest patent website in the world. It provides a free patent search facility for both beginners and advanced users.

How can I conduct Patent Search at USPTO?

The answer to this question is given in a technical way in many websites. We will try to avoid the jargon and we will try to enable even a layperson that is not exposed to search databases regularly to do it easily.

The USPTO deals with conducting a Patent Search using its freely searchable patent database through the Internet. The instructions are given at
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/ptdl/step7.htm The USPTO stresses the importance on 7 Steps each one to be done one after the other.

The Patent Search website Tmpsearchers.com has started a patent training course online. We can train you online wherever you live and the lessons and exercises are sent on a daily basis for three weeks. We teach a simplified version of methods to our students using Free Patent Databases. Although a paid database is more users friendly, the official free databases are updated with regular data and the expensive paid databases take some time (a short time) to update themselves to be current. Therefore it is necessary to conduct a search in the official free patent databases online even after using paid patent databases. A proper training and search strategy for free databases is therefore very important.

One problem is that the USPTO does not allow you to do the free patent search on patents granted prior to 1976 unless you start the patent search with the class and sub class alone. So you need to identify the classes and then do a patent research of pre 1976 patents also.

Our method slightly differs from the methodology advised by USPTO and consists of 9 Steps.

1. Start the search with some relevant keywords

When you do a search using USPTO you will go to the search inter-face at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html Start with the issued patents and start with using some keywords, which are relevant to your invention. You may use either the quick search method or the advanced search method. Be sure to study the help pages at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/help.htm and especially the page at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/helpadv.htm if you are going to use the advanced search method.

2. You will get some results and by using more relevant keywords you can reduce the number of patent titles to a minimum of about 40. Please keep a record of all the keywords that you used.

3. Please note all the classifications of cited in these patents. Note both the US Classification and the International Classification of Patents. This is a must.

4. Repeat the patent search with the Published Applications using http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.html Again record the search queries and the classifications.

5. Now study the classifications that are repeated time and again in your results and try to narrow down the invention to some particular classifications. It is not very difficult to do although it will take some time.

You may learn the other four steps by in our patent training web page.

These steps should give you a very comprehensive picture of the free patent search that can be done at USPTO.

A similar strategy can be followed at other free patent databases online using the International classifications that you have identified.

Working at the Free Patent Search website Tmpsearchers.com we find that we are able to find patents easily when we do patent search this way, but the key here is to master the keywords to be applied to conduct the patent search. If you want to know more or learn other advanced techniques of patent search using the free patent search interface of USPTO patent database, please contact us for any help needed.

Ramaswami a Patent and Trademarks Attorney in India provides free counseling in Patents and trademarks in India. Know more about the services you can ask for at http://www.tmpsearchers.com/contact.asp

Pendants - The Best Gift To the Woman in Your Life

Quoting the famous line by Groucho Marx - Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife”, let us begin by complimenting women for what they are and what they can turn any person into. Right from the stage of birth and infancy, it has been women who have helped each of us come into this beautiful planet, and learn a plethora of actions, thoughts and words.

But sometimes, words fail us when we want to appreciate the commendable capabilities of every woman in this world. Whether it is a sweet homemaker or a 9-6 executive, there is something about each of them which makes them so special, so exquisite. And when you feel words fail you, the best way to express your gratefulness or your appreciation for them is by gifting them something that each of them just love wearing – jewellery.

Every woman is a young girl at heart, who loves to decorate herself with finery of all sorts. She is beautiful, and she knows how to enhance her beauty. And if you really want to impress her or make her feel special, your best bet lies in a pendant. Through Pendants, you can express what you feel for her in the best possible way. You can choose pendants that represent her or a pendant that best expresses your emotions for her.

The best part about gifting pendants to a woman is that you can gift such jewellery to anyone in your life. A pendant can make a very cherished and memorable gift for your Mom. You can gift a pretty little pendant to your best friend – that tells her what a special place she has in your life. Pendants make for ideal gifts when you are going out on a date. And if you have forgotten your marriage anniversary – may God and beautiful pendants save you!

Paul Shane cherishes a hobby of studying and collecting jewellery, to dig out the making and story behind them, especially the rare or exquisite ones, also the Pendants being used for manufacturing the jewellery. He also loves studying consumer behaviour related to jewellery selecting and buying. At present he is associated with a leading group called E-Beads Limited.

Legal issues about Trademarks and Domain Names

Trade marks are a name or symbol that are used to distinguish the goods of services of a particular company from others.

Similar to copyrights and other signs of intellectual property, the effects of the trademark system is territorial. This means, that each country has its own trademark system. A brand name like Machine Head may be owned by one person in the United Kingdom and by another, totally unrelated, person in the United States.

The domain name system, which is putting most of its emphasis on the .com title as the international domain, does not really jive well with the trade mark system because of the latter's fundamental definition of "ownership."

A case in point is the Prince vs Prince suit. Prince, the US-based manufacturers of sports goods, challenged the use of the www.prince.com domain name by a British computer consultancy company. The said company registered the domain in good faith and have been using it. The Prince sports goods company, which has no registered UK trademark, threatened to sue the British company for US trademark infringement. The latter counter-sued in the UK for the unwarranted threats regarding trademark infringement. They eventually won and the US company had to contend with just using the domain name www.princetennis.com.

Alternatively, a different scenario where the trademark owner will most likely prevail over a domain name holder's rights is in the case of Marks & Spencer vs One in a Million. This particular case was elevated to the English High Court in 1997 when various trademark holders, including the world-famous UK retailer Marks & Spencer, sued One In A Million, a company who accumulated a number of domain names under the well-known trademarks like Sainsburys, Virgin, Marks & Spencer, and Cellnet. These domain names, and others, were bought with the express goal of selling them again to the trademark owners. The High Court decided that One In A Million be required to relinquish their claim on the said domain names. This decision was further upheld by the Court of Appeal.

The One In A Million company's basis of argument was that domain name registrations were first come, first served", thus, the trademark owners do not have any rights to the domain names.

Based on the two actual court cases we can build up a clear picture about the interrelation of trademarks and domain names.

In general, domains that have no trademark significance can be acquired by the entity who registered them first. Continuous use of this non-trademarked name will allow the holder to build a reputation on the name. When the situation is between to legitimate companies who have a right to the name then, as with the stipulation of most laws in most countries, the first person who registers will get the domain. However, a registrant to a domain that is also a subject of a trademark and who does not have any entitlements is going to be forbidden based on the laws of most countries. For more information please visit http://www.dolphinformations.co.uk