The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently reduced the minimum “per class” government fee for trademark applications from $275 to $225. The only substantive requirement for taking advantage of the lower filing fee is selecting entries from the Trademark Office’s Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual that accurately describe your goods and/or services.
There are innumerable benefits of owning Federal trademark registrations for your trademarks compared to owning only “common law” rights in the trademarks, so now is a great time consider registering your unregistered marks or registering those marks that you are planning to use soon. Some of the key benefits of registration include:
- The statutory presumptions of trademark validity and ownership of the trademark throughout the entirety of the United States.
- The registration can be cited by examiners in the USPTO as a bar to registration of similar marks (we will also receive notification of the refusal).
- The registration will show up in your competitors’ searches of the USPTO records and will deter their selection of similar marks.
- The registration can be cited in “cease and desist” letters to your competitors and as a result make those letters much stronger.
- The registration can be the basis for international filings, especially filings through the Madrid Protocol.
- The registration can be cited to Internet Service Providers to achieve greater protection against online infringement.
- The registration can be recorded with U.S. Customs to prevent the importation of infringing or counterfeit products.
- The registration affords the ability to seek enhanced damages in infringement actions.
If you would like to discuss registering any of your currently unregistered trademarks or trademarks that you plan to use in the near future, please contact Jordan LaVine, Alexis Arena, or any member of Flaster Greenberg’s Intellectual Property Department.
