so i am posting hope that one of you might help me in answearing this questions that i have.
i know some of you might worked in something like that . and therfore i am looing forword to your help.
i am planing to creat a trade name form my small studio that will start with me and my brothers for now .
we are planing to work on short comics - short games - and short movies.
but we dont know what is best for our vission.
trade name or trade mark … or maybe there is something else we are missing.
also we want to creat something enternationaly so guiding us to a trusted site so we can establish our needs in protecting our projects would be really amazing
so what do you advise us, and what should we do as a first step.
looking forword for your answears and help …
thakns
You can think that “Microsoft” is a tradename, because it has lots of products and services that are hard to be defined. But say that “Excel” or “Office” are trademarks because they refer to specific products.
However “Marvel” on the contrary, is now is a trademark since it belongs to “Disney” parent company. But before that it had the registered legal name on US, that essentially it was only by the means of a trade name.
More or less trade name is about the legal business name, but the trademark is about copyright IP and brand name. Though in certain cases you can have both of them, because they are essential:
• Tradename: MyComicsStudio LLC
• Trademark: MyComicsStudio
Don’t waste your time “speculating” when the definitive information is already out there. For instance, in the United States, this site is provided by the government itself.
To begin with, you should simply create a distinctive business-name and maybe a distinctive logo. Since you are most likely to be dealing with local clients, you’re not ready for “trademark registration” yet, and you do not yet need it. But you can (and should) certainly begin “establishing a trademark” in the minds of your competitors and customers.
At this point, you can use a symbol such as “™” to express to others that you “take a proprietary interest” in this business name and/or distinct logo.
In the United States, “trademark registration,” as in “®” is a significant extra step. This designation: (1) requires verifiable “interstate commerce,” (2) costs quite a bit of money, and (3) only lasts ten years unless you pay more money. Furthermore, if you find that someone actually is “treating your mark as ‘generic’,” the so-called “Doctrine of Laches” means that you have to defend yourself and that the Government will not help you do it. It’s a law that only Lawyers would love.
And: I should know, because I actually did it. For about twenty years, I sold a proprietary software-tool product all around the world(!). (Long but interesting story …) For that period of time, it was “worth it” to protect the name. But, when the commercial value of that tool eventually “died off,” I finally let the registration go. (Fortunately, no one ever actually challenged me.)
For about twenty years, I sold a proprietary software-tool product all around the world(!).