The 3 most common trademark mistakes, and how to avoid them

I was speaking with a friend recently and he said to me, “You know, you’ve worked with so many different brands, so many different trademarks over the years. You’ve seen so much when it comes to trademarks. What are the biggest and most common mistakes that you see?” I had an answer ready. You see, there are three mistakes that are big and that are frequent.

Here are those three most common mistakes that I see, with links to more details about each topic.

1. The first one is not searching for conflicts before adopting a new brand name, not properly ensuring that the name is unique in the relevant industry and field.
2. The second common mistake is not filing an application and not filing an application quickly at the USPTO because it is important to get the filing date established. That’s when protection starts, particularly for an intent to use application, but even for any trademark, it’s important to start that process as quickly as possible because the process takes so long and because the protections, some of the protections begin when it’s filed.
3. The third mistake that I see frequently is people who go about it without hiring an attorney. If they don’t hire an attorney who has experience in the field of trademarks, they are much more likely to botch the first two things that I mentioned, but they’re also much more likely to encounter other problems and to spend a lot more money when they do eventually come to an attorney to try to clean it up or to try to fix the application, if it even is fixable.

If you’d like to avoid making mistakes with your trademarks, it’s not too late to contact an experienced attorney such as myself and see how we can get your trademark on track.