Category: Trademark Law

Trademarking logos.

If you have a distinctive logo that contains words, then you should eventually file both word and logo marks because they protect different things: the word mark the word itself, the logo the look-and-feel of the logo. For example, I have CLOCK TOWER LAW GROUP as a word logo and also have my airplane logo trademarked, since I want to stop any other law firm from having “Clock Tower” in its name or a retro 1950s-style airplane in its logo.

Sometimes, the descriptive parts of a trademark have to be “disclaimed” as part of a trademark application. So “Bob’s Grocery Store” would not be trademarkable because it is descriptive, but a distinctive logo for Bob’s Grocery Store might be. This is the cool part about logo trademarks. When people search the USPTO’s trademark database for “Bob’s Grocery Store,” they will find the logo trademark, so it will discourage them from trying to register similar trademarks.

If a trademark mark is primarily descriptive, then we recommend leading with the logo application and then following up in a year with the word application (the logo application blazing the trail for the word application). If the mark is fanciful or arbitrary, then we recommend leading with the word mark, which will give the broadest protection as soon as possible.

Clock Tower Law Group’s trademark portfolio includes four main categories of trademarks:

1. company names and nicknames
2. logos
3. product names and service names
4. slogans and taglines

A trademark is just that – a mark of a trade. Something that identifies the source of the products or services being offered. If a logo is being used to identify the source of a company’s goods/services, then it can be registered with the the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The following are some of the registered slogan/tagline trademarks for some of Clock Tower Law Group’s clients.

1. pawspot [logo]
2. CALL-EM-ALL [logo]
3. SkinSolutions [logo]
4. [BzzAgent Bee Logo]
5. CLOCK TOWER LAW GROUP [logo]
6. COVE Virtual High School Community of Virtual Educators [logo]
7. VHS VIRTUAL HIGH SCHOOL [logo]
8. THE EXECUTABLE EDITOR [logo]
9. EQUUS CANDLE COMPANY [logo]
10. COMREX [logo]

Note that all trademark applications are public records, so none of this information is confidential. Also, since patent and trademark law is federal law, Clock Tower Law Group’s clients can be (and are) located anywhere in the country or the world.