Trademark applications fundamentally allow an applicant to apply for one of two types of “Trademarks” (although sound/motion marks are also available); A standard character, or a word trademark and a special format trademark, or what is commonly referred to as a Design trademark.
A successful trademark application must fulfill the statutory requirements for at least one of the five bases for a trademark to be granted by the Unites States Patent & Trademark Office. Many trademark applicants choose to file a Trademark Electronic Application System Plus (TEAS) application since the filing fee is reduced to just $275.00 per International Classification. In addition to paying the filing fee, the application must satisfy the bases requirements in effect at the time of filing.
Trademark Cease and Desist letters elicit wildly different mental and emotional reactions, depending on whether you are on the sending or receiving end of these letters. The fundamental purpose of a cease and desist letter, of course, is to allow a holder of a trademark to notify an alleged violator that there is indeed trademark infringement underway, and stipulate the trademark holder’s demands and threats if those demands are not met.
Perhaps one of the most common questions our trademark attorneys are asked is whether or not I can use my name as a trademark. This is of course not particularly surprising – entrepreneurs and small business owners very often want to brand their businesses with their own names to make the company feel more personal and in a certain way, intimate.
That your trademark has gone abandoned is not necessarily a fatal conclusion and the USPTO provides its applicants an opportunity to revive an abandoned trademark under certain circumstances. Like all dealings with the USPTO, form matters and there are specific procedural rules and requirements that must be met when filing a petition to revive.
