Of course registering a trademark costs money, literally. At a minimum there’s the USPTO filing fees. But it actually saves money. It saves far more than it costs. I say this because a trademark registration appears in the USPTO’s database and then automatically helps block possible conflicts automatically for you. This means that when other brands are researching potential names for their products and services, they ought to be searching the USPTO records and they may come across your name and never use a similar name because they saw yours.
A registration means that the USPTO examiners, when they review future applications are looking for potential conflicts that might cause a refusal of those applications, have access to the registered mark as a potential conflict to refused another application. Applications get refused all the time based on conflicting registrations. The registrant doesn’t find out automatically from the USPTO that it blocked things, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
A trademark registration can be doing work 24/7 on its own. And that is why it saves money.
Registration also saves money because if there ever is a dispute – and if the owner has a successful business, let’s face it, the odds are pretty good that at some point they are going to come across some sort of trademark dispute, either on the plaintiff side or the defendant side – the dispute is much more likely to be resolved easily, quickly, and favorably when you have a trademark registration. The registration therefore may may save the owner lot money in any dispute situation which may arise.
For these reasons, the investment in a trademark registration provides tremendous value. It doesn’t actually cost money, it saves money.
