Didn't Know About Trademarks

[Data Glasses]

Watching the Tv Show SharkTank last night and one lady didn't know about trademarks after starting her business, she assumed that the business name would be enough and already has some products in a supermarket, there is a trademark pending for the name of her new venture!
~
Decided to register Small Business Test / Com ...... might do a simple one page lander with some ground floor questions, does your business have a trademark issues?

 

[Erwin]

It's a good idea..

I would not be surprised that many would think the same (that a business name is enough) It's becoming very important to register a ™ as our global economy is becoming smaller due to the internet..

 

[petermeadit]

Yeah I saw that on tv too. Interesting, I often get clients who think if they have the business name it protects them, and then dismissing the need for a trademark.

 

[findtim]

further to that peter its amazing how many people think these things:
1) if i have a business name i'm entitled to the domain name
2) i have a business name, isn't that the domain name? what !!!! i have to register it ????
3) so whats your domain name ? ohh, its mybusinessname@bigpond.com !!!!!!
4) what do you mean i can't register " carloans.com.au " ?
5) you mean someone thought of THIS before me !!!!!
and the list goes onnnnnnnnnnnn
tim

 

[snoopy]

Yeah I saw that on tv too. Interesting, I often get clients who think if they have the business name it protects them, and then dismissing the need for a trademark.

Most probably don't need to register a trademark. For the average small business just claiming "TM" by putting it at the end of their mark is probably going to be enough. Think it is more of an issue where they are a larger business with a legal team and are going to go after people.

 

[findtim]

claiming "TM"

wouldn't that be illegal?
i could get away with it though ! i could say " ohh bugger, i must have typo'd and missed the i in tim " LOL
tim

 

[petermeadit]

Great point snoopy.
I often think an SEO client I had where we started outranking some major competitors for their own terms. They hit us with their lawyers, we had a trademark, but they had a USA trademark that trumped us.
So they took the domain name and shut us down.
The company had to re-brand, and start again.
Very costly exercise, and unforeseen. Since in this case they had a trademark and they really thought it was well covered.

 

[Data Glasses]

In this instance it may be trouble for the lady concerned as the name seems to be in the food industry and the entity who have applied for the trademark seem more knowledgeable and are in the food industry as well from what i could make out, i have heard of local presence trademark before but for about $500 all up (ten years protection and the online application) it's worth spending for the brand protection, this lady simply didn't know

 

[snoopy]

wouldn't that be illegal?
i could get away with it though ! i could say " ohh bugger, i must have typo'd and missed the i in tim " LOL
tim

No, "TM" means you are claiming an unregistered trademark. "®" means registered trademark.

 

[helloworld]

Great point snoopy.
I often think an SEO client I had where we started outranking some major competitors for their own terms. They hit us with their lawyers, we had a trademark, but they had a USA trademark that trumped us.
So they took the domain name and shut us down.
The company had to re-brand, and start again.
Very costly exercise, and unforeseen. Since in this case they had a trademark and they really thought it was well covered.

Can you elaborate on this more? What was the reasoning for the US trademark to trump an Australian trademark?
IMO if the trademark lawyer had said,we're going to lose this, they should have started the re-brand immediately and passed on the 301 juice before it was transferred away.

 

[petermeadit]

I will try to explain while maintaining confidentiality.
So I worked for a company how had a product line named 'word1 word2' and the domain was word1word2. Com. Au however there was a US company that was in the same product line named 'word2' and the site was word2. Com .

It just so happened that as a result of the SEO I did for them that we started out ranking them for 'word2' related terms.

We got a legal letter to say that because our trademark name included as a subset 'word2' and we were selling in the same product line, that our trademark was in breach of theirs.

Our lawyers sized up the case and decided that they were a big bear on the hill and that we could not win the case if we contested it further so there was a date set to hand over the domain.

Going back a few years now, and I am not really sure what legal nuances they got us for.
Main thing is that we had a trademark and thought we were safe...

 

[petermeadit]

Sorry about the typo I am on my mobile phone using the Android app.

 

[petermeadit]

To clarify further, I believe they said it was trademark infringement. Because one of the words in our trademark, was actually the main word in theirs, albeit a very generic word at that.

But back to the thread topic, they lady did not even know about trademarks. Furthermore, just having a trademark is not enough either. It is a complicated business.

These topics should all be left in the hands of a skilled trademark lawyer, as I really have no qualifications to talk about it. But I was just speaking about what I have seen happen.