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Branding is a critical asset for many businesses. Lawyer For Business understands how valuable your trademarks, service marks, and trade dress are for building your commercial reputation and earning goodwill.
We are trusted trademark lawyers who help you develop a strong presence and protect it in the competitive New York marketplace.
Trademark registration is much more efficient today than it has been at any previous time in history. Trademarks can be easily discovered by trained professionals through searching online databases, and trademarks can be registered quickly using online services.
This means that Lawyer For Business can help your business register a new trademark, update an old trademark, or renew a trademark in the shortest time possible. This is critical if you want to ensure that your business protects its defining trademark.
If you need any trademark services for your New York state business, Lawyer For Business is a convenient option you need. There is no need to visit our office or even call us. Simply contact us online, and we can assist you quickly.
At Lawyer For Business, you can get an experienced trademark attorney to help you with several trademark services for businesses in Buffalo and throughout New York State. Our trademark filing services include:
A trademark attorney will search through registered trademarks to ensure your trademark doesn’t conflict.
Our familiarity with trademark registration allows us to prepare your application quickly and inexpensively.
When the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) requests more information, we provide it immediately.
If you are buying or selling a trademark, we can expedite that process.
We keep accurate records of all of your trademarks and the dates of their registration.
When your trademark is up for renewal, we ensure that the process is completed before it expires.
Here is a glimpse into our comprehensive strategy for trademark registration:
Every trademark has to be unique. The first step of the trademark registration process is ensuring that your proposed trademark doesn’t conflict with any other trademark that is already registered. To ensure this, we search the USPTO database to make sure there are no obvious conflicts between your proposed trademark and another registered trademark.
Once we have eliminated all obvious conflicts, we do a comprehensive search for any potential conflicts. This requires us to search the trademark database of every single state, looking for similar company names, logos, or domain names. If we find any potential conflict, no matter how small, we share that information during the second step of the process.
Also known as a freelance contract, these agreements are a must-have if you employ freelancers or gig workers for any project. These agreements make it clear to the parties and the court reviewing the employment relationship that the worker is responsible for their work and conduct.
Without an independent contractor agreement, a freelancer might argue that they are an employee of your business and entitled to the benefits and protections you give to your employees.
This can be disastrous for your business if the contractor happens to injure another person while performing work for you without an independent contractor agreement in place.
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You may be curious whether it’s better to file a state or federal trademark. Here are some of the elements you should consider:
The biggest advantage of a state trademark is that it is cheap and quick to file. A New York State trademark only has a $50 filing fee, which is quite cheap compared to the filing fee for a federal trademark. New York State will usually take less time to complete your application process as well.
Technically, you don’t even need to file for a state trademark. Common law trademark rights grant you a trademark the moment you start using a distinctive mark for commercial purposes.
However, by registering the trademark with the state, you gain additional rights, including:
As a rule of thumb, if you only intend to do business in the state of New York and never plan to move out of the state or expand to other states, a state trademark may be more than enough for your needs. This creates the possibility that a business in another state might use a similar, or even identical, trademark. But that shouldn’t negatively affect your business as long as they only use that trademark in their state.
A federal trademark is important if you do business in multiple states or do business internationally. When you get a federal trademark, it applies to every state in the country, even though you don’t have state trademarks for it. Additionally, due to the Madrid Protocol, having a federal trademark allows you to file that trademark in other countries where you do business.
However, you should be aware that a federal trademark has a starting cost of $250-350 to file plus an additional $250-350 fee per “class of goods”, and may take a long time to be approved. The process for approving a federal trademark is simply more expensive and longer than the process for approving a state trademark.
This time and cost are worth it, though, if you want:
Typically, small businesses don’t need a federal trademark. But if your business is large or if your trademark greatly impacts your business, a federal trademark is worth the expense and aggravation.
A trademark attorney from Lawyer For Business will help you determine which type of trademark is best for your business and then will complete the registration process for you.
The office of the New York Secretary of State administers the registration process for all trademarks in New York state. The business (or its duly appointed representative) must fill out the current application, which can be found on the New York Department of State website.
This application requires:
This information must then be mailed to the New York State Department of State, along with a $50 check or money order. The New York State Department of State will not accept cash. Additionally, you must include three examples of how the mark is used by your business for commerce within the state of New York.
Once you have submitted your application, you will have to wait for the state to either accept or deny your trademark. When a trademark is denied, it is usually denied for insufficient information or because a similar trademark was previously filed.
Lawyer For Business attorneys is experienced with both federal and New York state trademark law. When you choose us, you:
Mistakes with trademark registration can be costly in terms of both time and money. Attorneys from Lawyer For Business will ensure that your trademark is protected the way it should be.
Your trademarks define your business. Clients and customers recognize your business and your products when they see your trademark in use. Protecting your trademark from infringement is critical. An experienced trademark attorney from Lawyer For Business will ensure that the trademarks for your New York state business are filed quickly and successfully. When you need a licensed trademark attorney, contact us immediately.
When you have no trademark registration, you have common law trademark rights. These rights are limited to the location where you do business.
A New York trademark registration expands your geographic scope of rights to cover the entire state, even if you do not yet conduct statewide business.
New York statutes also entitle registrants to certain rights, including:
Registration can also bring commercial benefits like brand recognition and business expansion.
New York allows the registration of any identifier, including:
Generally, you do not need to classify your marks in an application. But you will need to provide a specimen of the mark.
While the application is pending, the New York Department of State may allow changes to the application. Once a registration certificate has been issued, you can only correct errors made by the Department and assign ownership of the mark.
You can also make ministerial changes, like updating your address. If you change the mark or add or remove goods or services, you will probably need to file another application to cover the new mark or revised goods and services list.
The enforcement of trademark rights is not automatic.
With the help of your trademark attorney, you are responsible for:
The protectability of your marks depends on their distinctiveness and how you use them. A trademark attorney can advise you on the best way to use your marks.
Trademarks protect marks or names that uniquely identify your business. This mark can be a logo, company name, slogan, or product/service name. Copyright, conversely, protects the written work of an author, whether it be a book or other type of media (like music or movies). Finally, patents protect inventions from being used by others without permission.
You are not legally required to trademark your business name, but you probably should. The moment you start using your business name for commercial purposes, you automatically increase your exposure for unwanted infringement. By registering the business name as a trademark, you gain additional protections that are important if someone tries to infringe on your trademark.
Yes. Every individual mark is a separate trademark. Your business name must be registered separately from your logo, which also must be registered separately from your slogan. If you use multiple logos or slogans, each one also has to be registered separately. Although the cost of filing for a federal trademark can add up, keep in mind that legal fees and filing fees can be deducted from business taxes owed as qualified business expenses, and the cost to proactively protect your brand can far outweigh the cost of a legal battle to enforce your rights later on.
The filing fee for each trademark application in New York State costs $50. You can mail multiple applications at once and combine the fee into a single cost. But any check over $500 must be certified. Alternatively, you can pay by cashier’s checks or with money orders.
The filing fee for each federal trademark application in the United States costs $250-350. You can submit your application electronically using a credit card.
Assuming there are no mistakes with your application and no need for additional information, the approval process will often take at least eight months and may take over a year. This is why it is so important to hire a Lawyer For Business to assist you. We prevent you from making mistakes or leaving out critical information.
No, but you probably should hire an attorney. Because the trademark application process takes so long, mistakes can cost you years. Many people who don’t hire attorneys will often spend more on fees and other costs than they would by hiring an attorney in the first place.