Protecting your business name & logo

More seems better, Tom. Registering a state copyright AND a federal patent seems to be prudent, and maximizes your protection to the exclusive use of your business name under the law.
 
Copyright like patents and trademarks must be actively protected to be enforceable. There is also the registered trademarks and copyrights. A different animal.
 
It isn't worth it. some joker will just use you name anyway and get away with it. that joker won't have insurance or haul debris. your phone will blow up with calls from the police and pissed off clients. all you have to do is prove you didn't do the job, then you get free clients.
 
Patents are for inventions, processes and ideas. Patents must be applied for under strict rules and are not automatic

Copyrights are for written, printed or other recorded material and other intellectual property. Copyright is automatic in the USA. For example your original business card, artwork, documents, videos and music are copyrighted automatically.

Trade names must be registered and are protected at the state level.

Trademarks must be registered with teh feds and are usually only for products produced or sold. The mark shows the prodcut as having come from the particular producer. This has a percieved value, hence the use of counterfeits.

Servicemarks are similar to trademarks but are used by companies that do not produce or sell products. A service mark points to who did the work but because there is no physical product it is harder to counterfeit and less necessary to do so.

Servicemarks are much harder to defend simply because the system is designed to protect trademarks and merely handles service marks as an afterthought.

Service marks are often better protected under copyright law.

The key with any of these is that case law has established that you must vigorously and always defend your marks, especially trade marks. There are enough case law to suggest that if you fail to defend a trademark even once then you have given up your rights to it.

Copyright is a little easier to defend though it is also easier to infringe. Since copyright is automatic it makes it that much easier to stake your claim. But since copyright only protects the presentation and not the idea behind it you will find that it is also eaiser for others to get around the copyright protection.

This is why proteciton relies on heavy action and threat because most infringers are casual theives who don't realize what they have done and will back down at a nasty letter.

Real theives know that you have to go to the matt to defend it and will simply wear you down until they lose or you quit. Either way they profit during the fight.

The good news is that cease and desist letters are cheap to send.
 
You DO have to go to the matt, Rick, but if (when) you win, the penalties can be pretty severe. You can sue them for every cent they've made using your name, in treble, among other penalties.

I think it was definitely worth the time and expense to have it done.
 
Absolutely agree NET, but, as is often the case they can simply wear you out. And, even if you do win a judgement, that just means they owe you the money. Collecting it is another matter.

Certainly something like that would not be handled in small claims court but successful collections from a small claims judgement is virtually zero.

In a different arena we had a former employee embezzel from us, convicted and ordered to pay restitution. Even the prosecutors told us not to expect to see a penny of it paid back to us. We could of course go back to court and hope that court costs will be added to the restitution but still nothing will guarantee repayment.

There is something to be said for the return of debter's prison...
 
I'm aware; small claims collections can be a joke in some places. Here, if it comes to it, the Sherriffs will come to your door and leave with either you or the money.

Matters such as this, however, would most certainly be handled in Superior court, and they have no problems with collections. ;) So... there is much incentive to not infringe on someone, as they could be swiftly driving your gear down the road with the court's blessing.
 
OK, try to dumb this down for me guys. I don't own a business, so I'm ignorant when it comes to these things. How is it possible that there is an "ArborCare" tree service in almost every city? More importantly, let's say I were to start my own business. I come up with a name I really like, only to find out a company (doing more or less the same type of business) already exists with that name 1000 or so miles away. Is it OK/legal to use the name? How would I find out?
 
When I started in business (Land Surveying) I registered my business name with the county register of deeds, establishing a name and date in the public record.
A local builder ran afoul with his business name the same as a smaller competitor and was forced to change names. If you choose something not commonly used you will avoid future problems.
 
I'd say "ArborCare" has become common enough it probably wouldn't be patentable, by itself. However, using another company as an example: "ArborCare of the Fox Valley" would most likely be patentable.
 
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