What is a trademark?
Take this hypothetical: you want to open a bakery selling bagels. Your community already has several bakeries, but you think other people would prefer your recipe for bagels. You invest in equipment, lease a building, and train kitchen staff. The twist for your bagel is that you use a small amount of bay leaves to provide a light herbal aroma. Because of this unique characteristic, you brand your product “Baygels,” and it becomes an instant hit. You also take great care you use when making your Baygels branded bagel.
People love your Baygels branded bagels! Your store is a success, but the other bakeries take notice. To try to win back their customers, they start to sell “Baygels” too, except they don’t use your recipe. Their quality is inconsistent because they don’t use quality ingredients. One day, a customer leaves you a bad review for something they purchased from a competitor.
This is the situation that trademarks address.
A trademark is a way for people to reliably identify the source of goods or services. The overall idea is that there is a cost to the consumer associated with searching out quality goods and services and vetting their suppliers. There is another cost borne by producers associated with developing a good product or service and a good reputation with customers, also known as “good will.” A trademark is a way to enable consumer confidence in the source and quality of the goods or services without having to verify it each time.
When you register your trademark with a state or federal government, you are protecting your brand and you are ensuring for customers a consistent origin and quality of goods or services. In short, your customers can be certain they are getting the good or service they intended to buy, time and again.
Henry Law can help you navigate the trademark registration process from evaluating your potential brand, to registration and maintenance of your registration, and even help you prosecute infringers.