Trademarks

No, you have to pay for them and register them.

Richard "Superpig" Fine
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3 | Enginuity4 | Enginuity5
ry. .ibu cy. .y''ybu. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu
"Don''t document your code; code your documentation." -me
"I''m not a complete idiot; parts of me are missing." -}}i{{

You can use it before registering.

Part of the registration is proof that you are using it. Registration is just the legal notification, and you can use it with a TM without registering and possibly win a court case if you can prove you used it first.

quote:

---

Original post by Taulin
You can use it before registering.

Part of the registration is proof that you are using it. Registration is just the legal notification, and you can use it with a TM without registering and possibly win a court case if you can prove you used it first.

---

I thought that only applied to copyrights. I thought you HAD to register and pay for trademarks to use them.

Nope, you get to use the 'tm' without registering, but your rights aren't as well protected as they would be with a registered trademark.

It is different from copyright in that it's not quite as automatic, though. You do need to consistently note it as a trademark with the 'tm' symbol for the law to protect you.

[edited by - cheesegrater on January 1, 2004 12:10:16 AM]

I believe it was Yann L who explained this a few weeks back. Not sure how the search is working now, but I think he was telling Raduprv about registering his game name.

The understanding I got out of it is that trademarks are in no way automatically protected [which agreed with my understanding of the law], but if you are actively using the name and it is well known that you are doing so, you do get some level of protection. So even if the Waltons haven''t registered Walmart as a trademark, you can''t go register it and sue them. That''s the difference between a little (tm) and a little (r). (tm) means an implied trademark, while a (r) means you''ve got paperwork proving it. It would be very expensive to defend a case proving you own a trademark when you haven''t registered it.

Keep in mind, though, that copyrights and trademarks don''t overlap that well...trademarks are pretty limited in scope and really aren''t that usefull unless you are running an extremely serious business.

CM

Also, iirc, you HAVE to sue anybody infringing upon your trademark that you find out about because if you don''t you lose any protection you had.

quote:

---

Original post by Extrarius
Also, iirc, you HAVE to sue anybody infringing upon your trademark that you find out about because if you don't you lose any protection you had.

---

If you have not applied for a legal trademark, then I believe so. The idea behind a trademark is to prevent your name from being watered down by other people using it. If you let the name get diluted, you can't later use the courts to clean things up.

*edit: I don't believe you were asking a question. But I answered it anyway. Oh well.

CM

[edited by - Conner McCloud on January 2, 2004 2:31:33 AM]