Thursday, 25 May 2006
Registered
I now officially own the ™ for blojsom which means I can use the ® symbol alongside the name.
Filing a trademark has to be one of the most fascinatingly boring processes. It took a year and 6 days for the application to be fully processed and the mark registered. Basically it goes like this:
* File a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
* After many months, your application is assigned an examining attorney responsible for verifying the application and searching for conflicting marks
* The attorney can then give the OK for the application or it can be refused for a number of reasons (which can later be resolved)
* After the application is OK'd, it's published in the Official Gazette, a weekly publication from the USPTO, for a 30-day opposition period
* Any party who feels they might be damaged by registration, can file an opposition to registration
* If no one opposes the registration (there is a fee for filing an opposition), a Certificate of Registration is issued
* The Certificate of Registration is issued about twelve weeks after the published date
I cryptically mentioned this process awhile back. I had a list of other registrations published in the same Gazette as blojsom that were quite amusing, but I can't find it now. The only notable one I remember is the filing for del.icio.us.
