Best Business Attorneys in White Plains, NY

Trademarks are a form of intellectual property, but they are NOT interchangeable with copyright or patent. A trademark is a word or symbol that identifies the source of a product or service.

You obtain trademark rights in the USA by using your trademark or service mark to promote or sell your product or service. When you use a trademark that is not registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, you should show you claim rights in the mark by placing the TM symbol immediately after the mark.

Receive your advice and attorney consultation before you introduce your new product or service. Ideally, you should engage the services of an experienced trademark attorney whenever your company is considering launching a new product or service. The best time to get a trademark attorney involved is before you have committed significant resources to your new trademark. If you want to make an application for federal registration of your mark, it is wise to engage a trademark attorney to guide you through the formalities of the application process. Even if you have already been using the mark for some time, we can advise you whether it makes sense to apply for federal registration, and if so, we can skillfully draft your application to help avoid objections by the government trademark examiner.

Hiring a trademark attorney may seem expensive, if the cost is analyzed in a vacuum. But if you compare the cost of engaging an experienced trademark attorney to the cost of litigating a trademark dispute, or the cost incurred if your company has to stop using a mark after spending years building up the value of the mark through expensive advertising campaigns, it becomes clear that hiring a trademark attorney can actually save you money. It costs more to hire a pilot than to fly the plane yourself, but there is value in having someone with experience at the controls. Like flying, trademark use involves risk. It is the job of the trademark attorney to help clients minimize that risk as much as possible. Engaging a trademark attorney to evaluate the availability of a proposed trademark prior to launching your product or service will lower your risk in using the mark. By minimizing the risk, the value of the trademark is increased.