Proper trademark usage creates trademark rights. While a trademark registration serves a key function in your brand protection efforts, it is the usage that creates your trademark rights. This is why it is crucial to learn how to properly use your trademark before, during and after the time that you register your trademark.
How Proper Trademark Usage Creates Trademark Rights
A good analogy is this: a trademark registration is like a car registration; trademark usage is like the car itself. While a car registration gives you important legal rights, it does very little without an actual vehicle. Trademarks are the same way. If you have a registration without the underlying rights, it may not serve you well. Trademark registration benefits rely on the trademark rights that you build through usage.
That means that the best way to establish trademark rights is to actually use your trademark in the market. Get out there and let people know about it and do business using that trademark. Not only does this help you to build value you in your brand, but it helps you get trademark priority.
The concept of priority is important. It basically means that the first person to use a trademark has stronger rights than others. If you register a trademark but someone has used the trademark for longer, they can cause problems. Priority has more nuances, but the basic concept is this: proper trademark usage creates trademark rights.
Proper Trademark Usage
But do keep in mind that any old usage will not do. Trademarks must be used properly to build rights. That means that you need to have use your trademark as an adjective and use your trademark consistently. Also, you will want to ensure that your continuous trademark usage so that you do not abandon your trademark rights. Finally, you want to ensure that nobody else is using a mark too close to yours – that too can damage your trademark rights.
Brand protection is a process. in addition to using your trademark, your journey will consist of doing a trademark search, getting a registration, using the right trademark symbol, and properly maintaining your trademark. These are all important and are all built upon your usage of your trademark.
If you have questions about how you can establish trademark rights to protect your brand (and you should do that), schedule a free phone call with one of our attorneys. We can walk you through the basics of this and other legal issues.