You should monitor your application to be sure that it is progressing and is not opposed by a third party. You can monitor your application through the Trademark Status and Document Retrieval system. It is important to monitor the progress of your application so you are aware of any problems and to be sure that you are not missing any deadlines which can lead to the abandonment of your application. About four months after filing, an examining attorney will review your application for any errors and to be sure that your application complies with all relevant laws.
They review the written application, your drawing and specimen to be sure that they match and are correct, and all supplemental information. The examining attorney will be sure that your trademark saying is not merely descriptive or generic and will check to be sure it is not likely to be confused with any prior pending or registered trademark.
This process may take several months. If the examining attorney determines that your trademark should not be registered, they will issue an office action letter that explains substantive reasons for this refusal, including any errors in the application process.
You will have an opportunity to respond to the office action within six months. If you fail to properly respond to the office action, your application will be denied, your trademark will abandon, and your government filing fee will be forfeited.
If you filed your trademark application on an intent to use basis, a Notice of Allowance will issue. From the date of issuance you will have six months to file a statement of use or to request an extension of time. A statement of use must meet stringent filing requirements and will be reviewed by your examining attorney. If the statement of use is improper, the examining attorney will issue an office action which must be properly replied to or registration will be denied and the trademark application will abandon.
If you overcome all objections, or if you did not receive an office action, the examining attorney will approve the trademark application. Any person or business that believes that your term would damage their business has 30 days from the publication date to oppose your trademark application.
It may take about three months from the time you receive the notice of publication until you receive a your registration. The steps above should be followed to trademark a phrase for a t-shirt.
Just remember that the specimen of use submitted with the application but show the term used on the label or a hang tag, not just on the front of the shirt. Short phrases, quotes, terms and sayings generally cannot be protected by copyright. Instead, short phrases, quotes, terms and sayings should be protected by trademark. Patents protect novel inventions. Thus, it is not possible to patent a phrase, saying, quote or term. Instead, trademark protection would apply. In order to enforce your trademark against any infringers, you must actively monitor and maintain it.
You can trademark a word , phrase, symbol, or a combination of these. When you trademark a phrase, you protect the words that represent your product or service. Trademarking a phrase prevents someone else from using it for a product or service that could be mistaken for yours. That means a trademark can only be enforced in the business class where it is registered.
By legally registering your trademark, you can you can protect it from infringement. In the United States, the U. You can trademark a phrase at the local level by applying at your state trademark office.
To trademark a phrase locally, you must already be using the phrase publicly. Phrases eligible for trademark registration include catch phrases, taglines, slogans, and mottos.
A catch phrase is an expression commonly used by a real or fictional person. This kind of phrase can be an important part of marketing your product or service. That makes it valuable and worthy of trademark protection. You can coin a phrase for, say, an organic grocery, but someone in home repair might be able to use it too. Simply coining your catchphrase doesn't create a trademark. To establish a mark, you have to use it in your business, for example, in your advertising.
Once people associate your phrase with your business, you have a "common law" claim to the trademark even if you don't register it with the government. If someone else in a competing business uses the same phrase, you can sue that business for trademark infringement if you coined the phrase first. Registering an established trademark gives you better protection, though. It gives you nationwide coverage, where common law protects it only in your sales area.
Registration also gives you an edge if a trademark dispute goes to war: If you register your phrase, the burden is on your competitor to show why your trademark is invalid. Before you apply to the U. If another business that provides the same goods or services you do has registered a similar mark, you could be out of luck.
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