Trademark Tips for Designers, Design, and Decor
What can you and should you register as trademarks as a designer? Here are a few tips for designers. The first thing you should register is your business name. Your trademark is a distinctive representation of your brand.
Your trademark helps clients find you in a crowded market. The more unique it is, the better it will serve you, and the easier it will be to register as a trademark. However, your trademark must be nonfunctional. In other words, it must not be a part of a product, its operation, or its pricing.
Like every business seeking trademark protection, you must first perform an exhaustive search for your trademark, whether it be a word, unique design, photograph, moving image, or virtually any element that functions as a source identifier per the USTPO.
Should your chosen name already be in use or so similar to other trademarks that it might cause confusion, you must choose another name for your brand.
Trademark ownership goes to the first entity using that mark in commerce for the sale of goods or services, not necessarily to the original creator.
If you also create original design pieces, you benefit from inherent copyright protection at its creation. But items like these are not capable of trademark registration. They are a product and not a source for identifying your brand.
Trade Dress
Registering a style of decor is possible if it is distinctive in the market. Think of franchise businesses like fast food restaurants and other chain eateries. Each has its particular color scheme, unique layout, and furniture.
Even the kitchen layout and building exterior can all be part of a trademark known as Trade Dress.
Likewise, proprietary smells, in-store music, and other brand elements that acquire distinctiveness in the public’s perception.
Trade Dress incorporates every element relevant to the customer’s experience and perception of the products and services of that business.
For example:
· Employee uniforms
· Signage
· Architectural Features
· Floor Plans
· Menus
· Tableware
Acquiring a Trade Dress trademark designation is much more complicated than registering your business name. These efforts will require adequate planning and strategy that will likely surpass your capabilities, especially as you try to create such an involved and extensive enterprise.
Independent Designers & Architects
Trade Dress for franchises and chains is one thing. But, can a designer or architect make similar trademark claims?
The answer is yes, in some cases.
The key to this trademark option is the distinction.
Suppose an individual architect’s (think Frank Lloyd Wright) work is easily recognizable and identifies that person as the origin. In that case, that architect has a significant distinction in the public realm and can qualify for Trade Dress designation.
The same thing goes for Designers; their work must acquire distinction in the public eye and become identifiable as the work of that particular designer.
Remember, the trademark winner is the first to use their mark and establish themselves in the marketplace. Those efforts are how you gain that distinction.
If all of this leaves you a bit concerned about your ability to handle the extra work and time to nurture your trademark application to success, we have a solution.
We Can Help
Trademark Factory® will help you determine your best strategy and advise you on the prudent steps to achieve your goals. For one flat fee, we will perform your name searches necessary for trademark applications.
The professional trademark attorneys and specialized staff at Trademark Factory® will do all the work to file your registration, shepherd it through the process, and keep you informed.
We also respond to Office Actions, which indicate an issue with your registration that you must resolve within a specific time. The majority of applications will receive at least one of these notices, and failure to respond will disqualify your application, forcing you to begin all over.
At Trademark Factory®, we understand the immense amount of time and effort that you invest in creating your enterprise. You want to focus your strengths and talents where they can best serve your goals.
Let us do the work; Filing trademark applications, and jumping through bureaucratic hoops is probably not the most effective use of your time or talent.
Why not contact Trademark Factory® today and learn how we can help you achieve such an important goal with confidence knowing you are in capable hands?
Your success is our success – we are cheering for you!