Trademark Registration a bit-by-bit process

As we are witnessing growth in business, more and more people are starting newer businesses and for that they also want to have a logo or trademark for that company. Apart from that what they also think of is of getting the capital to finance that company and about the ways that they will carry out that plans.

All these above plans are equally important from a business point of view. Without money it tough to start a business and without a product you have nothing to sell you prospective customers. Similarly sans a trademark none of you customers will ever be able to identify with the company's products. Thus trademark happens to be an integral part of brand building or company image building. What is important from a logo or trademark symbol point of view is that it must be designed in such a manner that customers can connect or remember easily.

But what do you do with the design, just printing it on your product and start selling it. What if tomorrow your products get nationwide acceptance and its popularity grows and then someone else takes the same logo and uses it on their products. How will you ever be able to prove that it belongs to you? So you would be in need to protection from others coping your trademark and that is only possible if you happen to get your trademark registered.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office gives the registration in the US. It is the body that handles all registrations of a trademark and it also takes care of trademark infringements. Along with granting registrations for a trademark is also happens to be responsible for granting fresh inventions patenting & copyrighting for engineering designs art works too.

First of all when you decide that you would like to pursue a trademark registration, what you would need to do is to get the registration application form. The form can be obtained either in physical format at the USPTO office or downloaded from their site. The form should be filled up with complete information as required and then the form can be submitted to the office. Then the job of the office is to check and evaluate the application and see if you have met the minimum requirements that they have set. Incase you fail on any of the requirements then the fee and the application is sent back to you. But if the requirements are fulfilled then your application is taken in and you are assigned a serial number.

But that's not all and though you have a serial number from the USPTO you are not to make use of the symbol yet. Upon filing the application, thereafter in about 2 months time you can expect to get a postcard via USPTO wherein it states the receipt of that every application sent by you. Then for a period of 6-7 months do not expect to listen from them. The whole process is a lengthy one and take months together before they tell you that the application is accepted, incase they need any clarification of any matter then it is better that you respond to them within thirty to sixty days And then you shall be told that your application has been approved, if all this is over in a time frame of below 1 year then consider yourself to be extremely fortunate.

Because of these reason you should be extra careful that the symbol that you choosing for being the trademark should not be similar to any of the present registered trademarks. One way of doing this is that when you set out to pick or create an image or logo should also search if that image or logo has already been put to use by someone else.

Incase that your symbol does not get their nod then it is the lawyer who will get in touch with you either by phone or by mail, then they shall get you to know what lead to the rejection of the application. In a high percentage of cases it happens to be that the symbol is accidentally or on purpose similar to symbols that have already been granted registration.

So here above have been mentioned what are the steps that are involved in filling of an application for a trademark registration, how much time it can take to get trademark registration confirmed and what can happen if your application is rejected. Incase you want to speed up the whole process then you might as well consider recruiting the services of trademark lawyer.