 Good morning everybody. Good afternoon, I guess everybody depending on where you're at in the country. I'm Nick Profi, your host and director of DAV Patriot Boot Camp. Thanks for joining us today on DAV Patriot Boot Camp's Caffeine Connect webinar series. We do typically monthly to showcase the stories, expertise, and successes of our veteran entrepreneurs while also providing valuable knowledge and inspiration for all of our aspiring business owners out there in our community. Today we have a great program brought to us by the USPTO office, and for those of you who aren't familiar with what that is, that is the United States Patent and Trademarking Office, and we have a few members from that team joining us today to include Jessica Elly, and of course our presenter today, which is Kyle. We'll get to Kyle here in a second, but thank you all for joining us. As I mentioned, our presenter for today is going to be Kyle Ingram, and it's always a pleasure to have partners of ours from the USPTO office last year. We were lucky enough to have some members from that team as well, but we did a Caffeine Connect on IP basics and resources. Hopefully those of you who attended remember that, but if you don't, you can find that on our YouTube channel if you want to take another look, look see through that. So that's out there for you, but here at DAV Patriot Boot Camp we're always trying, we're always on a mission to improve our foxhole. And so we thought it necessary to dig in on trademarking as that seems to be a popular topic for those of you who are kind of getting started with your businesses. And naturally there are a lot of entrepreneurs who have a lot of questions about trademarking. For example, when they get a trademark, how to get one? Why the heck would I need one? So these might seem like a few simple questions. And I think, and I'm hoping that Kyle can answer a lot of that today. In a segment we call trademarking 101. I know, very original or very original here. So let me take a moment and introduce to our presenter today, Kyle Angrum. Kyle is an attorney with naturally the trademarks customer outreach office within USPTO. Prior to taking on this role, Kyle worked as a trademark examiner attorney for six years. And as an attorney, Kyle's previously worked for the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Justice, specifically the Bureau of Prisons. Before attending law school, Kyle started the United States Air Force as a contracting officer. And when he isn't working on trademarks, Kyle enjoys fitness, travel, and naturally learning about nature. So Kyle, without further ado, the floor is yours. Share your presentation. And let's get busy with trademarking 101. Excellent. Thank you very much for that introduction. Can you one little second? I'll get things going here. So as Nick said, I'm Kyle Angrum. I am an attorney advisor with the trademark's customer outreach office. And today we're going to be going over trademark basics, what every small business should know now and not later. We'll start with fundamentals, namely, what is a trademark? We'll move on to the benefits of federal registration, why you might want to register a trademark. Then we'll go on to selecting a trademark, the filing and registration process, and finally, how to find help. So even if you don't yet understand or fully comprehend the legal significance of a trademark, I'm willing to bet you already know a lot about trademarks. You're very familiar with them. Up here on the screen, we have some more commonly known ones. And I guarantee you know these trademarks and the goods and services with which they're associated. You have Coca-Cola. Well, that's for soft drinks. You have McDonald's. That's fast food. You have that Nike swoosh down there. That's athletic equipment, athletic apparel. But what is a trademark? So a trademark is any matter that identifies the source of goods and services and distinguishes those from the goods and services of another party. Essentially, it provides legal protection for your brand. Now before we get too deep into what trademarks are, I quickly want to discuss what trademarks are not. So a trademark does not mean that you legally own a word or phrase. It does not mean that you can stop other people from saying that word or phrase. And it does not mean that people owe you money if they say that word or phrase. So all a trademark is, it's something that gives you exclusive rights to use a word or phrase only when you're using it as a brand for your particular goods and services. So for example, let's say you own a business consulting company and you have a trademark for the word cheetah. Now you can't call up the San Diego Zoo and demand that they stop talking about cheetahs unless they pay you. Similarly, if someone wants to use the word cheetah as a trademark for athletic shoes, you probably can't stop them from that type of usage either. We'll talk a little later about when a party's usage is or is not a problem. But for now, the important thing to remember is that a trademark only gives you exclusive rights to a word or phrase when you're using it as the brand or source indicator for your particular goods or services. Now, technically, if we want to get particular with the vocabulary, a trademark only applies when what's being identified is goods or products. And a service mark applies when you're indicating the source of services. So, you know, if your friend comes up to you and says, hey, I've got great news, I applied for a trademark from my lawn care services company, you can say, well, actually you applied for a service mark. And I think that is a great thing to do if you never want to get invited to parties again. So we put this slide up here in all seriousness, so that during the application process, if you see the term service mark, you're not going to be thrown off. You know what it is. If you use the word trademark to describe services, that's fine. We actually kind of use it interchangeably at our office as well. But now you know. So the three most common types of trademarks that we see at the office, and this is probably 99.5% of what we see is brand names. And now this can be your business name. It doesn't have to be. You can establish a brand that's separate from your business name. We have slogans and we have logos. So for example, what you see here, Coca-Cola, that's the brand name. It's the real thing. That's a slogan. And here the seal with a Coca-Cola bottle and always Coca-Cola wording. That's the logo. Now you recall, I said that a trademark is any matter that identifies the source of goods and services. We also have plenty of non-traditional trademarks. For example, sound, the NBC chimes, the NBC. I don't know if we have anyone in here under the age of 25 who doesn't watch broadcast television. So for you, Netflix, that little, the drum sound, that's a sound trademark that's owned by Netflix. Color, the UPS trucks that they're dark brown. So if you see a delivery truck that's solid, dark brown, you know that those package delivery services are being rendered by UPS. Play-Doh, for example, the smell of Play-Doh, that is a trademark. That's not a chemical byproduct that comes from making the modeling clay. That's something that Hasbro adds after the fact. So that if you're playing with a modeling clay and you have that smell, you know that you're working with Play-Doh and not some other companies modeling clay. We've also got motion. We've got holograms. We have configuration and shapes. You can see that in the bottom right. That is the Coca-Cola bottle. That's a configuration mark. So a trademark can be anything as long as it identifies the source of goods and services. So at the end of every section here, we have a little knowledge check. Let's see if I can pull this up real quick. There we go. Now, as Nick said, I was in the military for a while, and I remember the commander's calls where the commander would get up there and say, good afternoon, everyone. And we'd say, good afternoon, sir. And he'd say, I can't hear you. And so we just have to keep saying good afternoon, sir, or good afternoon, ma'am, until he or she decided we were sufficiently enthusiastic. I'm not going to do that to you here today. So I'll ask these knowledge check questions. If you want to answer them in the chat, great. If not, if I don't see any responses, I'll just give you the answer and we'll move on. So without further ado, the first knowledge check question. Does a federally registered trademark mean that you own a word or phrase? I'm going to look over at the chat. I'm not really seeing anything. So no, it does not mean that you own the word or phrase. It only means that you have exclusive right to use a word or phrase to indicate the source of your goods and services. Do you have to use your business name as your trademark? Again, no, you don't have to. You certainly can, but you don't have to. Now that we have an idea of what a trademark is, let's talk about the benefits of federally registering a trademark. So there's two traditional ways of creating trademark rights. There is common law and there is a federal registration. So one of the questions we frequently get is, look, I have my business name, I have my brand name, things seem to be going fine. Do I have to register my trademark or am I completely vulnerable if I don't? The answer is no. You don't have to register your trademark. But if you don't register your trademark, your trademark rights are going to be based on common law. And common law, as we'll see, provides a more limited scope of protection than the rights that you're given if you federally register a mark. So common law rights, these are created as soon as you start using that trademark. Boom. Once you start using it, you've got common law rights. But with those rights, you're going to be limited to the geographic area where your mark is used. You won't get protection anywhere else. When you're relying on common law rights, the symbols you use, it's a TM next to the mark, if it's a trademark, goods or products, or an SM if it's a service mark, that is if it's services. You don't have to use these in order to get trademark rights, but it is a strong indicator to consumers and the public that the word or phrase that you are using as your trademark is intended to be a trademark. If you're relying on common law rights, you do not get to use that coveted R with a circle in it. That is something that's reserved for those who federally register their mark. Now, with federal registration rights, these are a lot broader. They're created once you actually federally register your trademark. And the rights are a lot stronger with a federal registration. For example, you have a legal presumption that you own the trademark. Not only that, but there's a legal presumption that you have the right to use the trademark in all 50 states and US territories. And that's great because you don't have to be using a trademark in a state in order to protect your rights in that state. And that's great for businesses and individuals that are looking to expand. So, if you are in Texas and you want to expand to Oklahoma and you register that trademark, then you're protected in Oklahoma, even if you're not using it there yet. Now, one thing that's important to remember is that the first user does have superior rights. So, if someone is relying on common law and they're using their trademark before you register your trademark, they're going to have superior rights in that area where they're using it. So, let's go back to the cheetah example. So, you have the trademark cheetah for business consulting services and you're using that in Texas and Louisiana. So, you haven't registered this mark yet. So, if someone else comes in and federally registers cheetah for business consulting services, you will still have superior rights to them in Texas and Louisiana, but they're going to have superior rights in all of the other states. So, you can see where that can create problems for you if you're relying on common law and you're wanting to ultimately expand your business into new jurisdictions. So, with a federal registration, you also can bring legal action in federal court as opposed to state courts. You can work with customs and border protection. They give you increased protection against counterfeit goods with your mark that are trying to be brought into the country and you can use it as a basis for filing in other countries. So, with a federal registration, you don't use the TM or SM. You get that super cool registered mark that are in a circle that lets everyone know that, yes, this is a federally registered trademark. So, on to the knowledge checks. Are you required to register your trademark with the USPTO? Quick check of the chat. Not seeing anything? No, you are not. It's a choice. It's a business choice. If you are happy with where your mark is being used, if you are in a single state and the size of your business is satisfactory to you and common law rights are going to give you all the protection you need, great. You may not need a federal registration. You may not need the national rights that the federal registration brings you. That's fine. Lots of people rely on common law. Does registering your trademark with the USPTO give you international protection? No, it does not. It protects your rights in the United States and its territories, but it does not give you international protection. Now, if you get that registration, a lot of times you can use it as a basis for filing for an application and a registration in another country, but it doesn't give you the rights in and of themselves. So, let's just say you've decided to federally register your trademark. We need to talk about what goes into that decision. How do you select that trademark? So, one thing to remember is the mission of the USPTO is to register any trademark that's eligible for registration. That's key to remember because if you apply for a trademark and you're running into hurdles, you're running into some difficulties, that's not because we're just throwing up administrative roadblocks for the fun of it. It's our job to register anything that's eligible for registration, and we're trying to get you there, I promise. But keep in mind, not every trademark is registrable and not every trademark is enforceable. So, you want to select one that's both. For example, let's go back to Cheetah. So, you have Cheetah for Business Consulting Services, and in this example, you are just the best business consulting firm on the planet. Everyone in this country loves you. You have customers in every state and territory. You are doing business everywhere in this country, but you don't have a federal registration. Now, someone else can come in and register Cheetah for Business Consulting Services because you don't have that federal registration. There's nothing to stop them from registering, so that is a registrable trademark for them. However, once they get that registration, they're going to hold it up, and it's not going to be enforceable anywhere because you will have common law rights that are superior to their trademark rights. So, in that instance, it's a worthless registration because it's not enforceable. Now, we don't want that to happen to you. We don't want you to invest all this time and money into a trademark, get it registered, only to find out that there's someone else in your state who's already using it, and it kind of blocks you from using the brand you want. It kind of saps all the time, money, effort you put into this. That's a bad spot to be in, and we don't want that. So, we want you to be able to select a trademark that's registrable and enforceable. Now, there's a lot of reasons that a trademark might not be able to register with USPTO. We don't really have the time to go over all of them here. So, we go over the two most common, and that is a likelihood of confusion refusal and a descriptiveness refusal. First, the likelihood of confusion refusal. So, the concept behind the likelihood of confusion is that we want to avoid confusing consumers about the source of the goods and services. You know, we don't want someone standing in the grocery store holding up two cans of coffee, looking at brand names that are really, really close and going, which one was it that I liked again? Which one was the good one? Which one was the cheap one? I just, I can't remember. These are too close. So, that's what we're trying to avoid. And when we determine whether or not trademarks are too close, we implement a two-prong test. The first is, are the trademarks confusingly similar? Do they look alike? Do they sound alike? Do they have similar meetings? Do they create similar commercial impressions? And if they are, we go onto the second prong. Are the goods and services related? That is, do consumers mistakenly believe that the goods and services come from the same source? Now, the second element is very evidence-based. You look to the market to see if they're related. And if goods and services are commonly provided by a single entity under the same mark, then they're considered related for a likelihood of confusion analysis. Now, you might be aware of several trademarks that are used by different companies, trademarks that are identical. For example, Dove. You have Dove for soap and you have Dove for chocolate and ice cream. So, if you're running through that likelihood of confusion test, you hit the first prong. Are they confusingly similar? Well, yes, they're identical. Are the goods and services related? Okay. So, do manufacturers of soap often make ice cream? Not that I'm aware of. So, that prong is not met. And there is no likelihood of confusion. And that's why a lot of times you'll see identical trademarks out there in commerce but used on different goods and services. So, let's run through a few quick examples. Here's a fairly straightforward one. Let's just assume you would like to register T-marquee for shirts. But there's already a registration of T-marquee for pants. Is there a likelihood of confusion here? Well, first prong are the marks confusingly similar. Well, they're identical. So, yes, they look the same. They sound the same. They mean the same. So, we move on to the second prong. Shirts and pants are they related? Do manufacturers of shirts also make pants under that same brand name? Well, yes, all the time. So, in this case, yes, there is a likelihood of confusion. Next one. T-marquee versus T-marquee for shirts versus pants. All right, first prong. T-marquee versus T-marquee. Do they look the same? Not really. Do they sound the same? Well, they sound identical. So, yeah, this is probably a problem. Move on to the second prong. Shirts and pants. Again, as we established, those are related goods. So, this would also be a likelihood of confusion. Now, T-marquee for shirts versus T-marquee for golf flags. Well, as we discussed in the last example, they're identical in sound. So, that first prong is met. What about shirts versus golf flags? I'll be honest, I don't know. I really don't. This is where we get to the evidence portion of a likelihood of confusion analysis. So, what we would need to do in this instance is we would need to go out into the market and see, okay, do manufacturers of golf flags also make shirts under that same brand? And you might come up with a list of people you think might make golf flags. Ping, Titleist, Callaway, just some things off the top of my head. Just grab some golf companies. And maybe they make shirts. Maybe they don't. But this is part of the search that you are going to do beforehand before you come up with a mark that you want to federally register. Because, again, if something's already out there, you're not going to be able to register it. If you have something that's already on the federal register that would present a likelihood of confusion, that's going to block your registration. So, when you search on your own, you want to search our database. And this includes federally applied for marks. Ones that people have just submitted the application, but they haven't completed the actual examination process, as well as marks that are already registered. So, the database is free to search. It's available 24-7 unless maintenance activity is actually being performed on it. The other source is the Internet. And this is where you're going to find those common law marks, those people that are using it, using a word or phrase as a trademark, but haven't registered it. So, these are the ones that trip people up the most, where they register their trademark only to discover that someone in their states already using it. And they didn't do the Internet search, and they stepped on that landmine. So, suggestions for searching. You want to hire a private trademark attorney. You don't have to, but that trademark attorney can do a far more comprehensive search. They can get a little deeper into our database. They can know where to go in terms of the state trademark databases. They know how to do the Internet searches a little bit better, simply because they've been doing it longer. We have private attorneys that have been doing this for 30, 40 years. Now, again, you don't have to hire an attorney. You can do a lot of this on your own, but if you want to be extra safe, this is a good way to do it. Now, the final knowledge check for this section. This one's a little tough, and you're probably not going to get a satisfactory answer. I'll tell you that right now. So, let's just say you want to register X seed for agricultural seeds, but you come across a registered trademark X seed for live plants. Is this going to be a problem? Well, you run through your likelihood of confusion analysis. First prong, are they similar? Are the marks similar? X seed versus X seed? I don't know. They sound kind of the same, but what does the commercial impression say here? You have X seed, which has a very clear meaning in the English language, versus X seed. It's clearly alluding to the word X seed, but it's commonly understood in commerce that the letter X, when you're advertising something, is something fast and mysterious. It's sexy. It's cool. And these are seeds, so X seed is, these are the cool seeds. Maybe there's something different going on there. I don't know. Agricultural seeds versus live plants, are those goods related? I probably, again, we would need to look to the evidence. Ultimately, this was a real case. And in this instance, the 2D refusal was upheld. So a judge said, yes, there is a likelihood of confusion here. Now, in my practice, I know examining attorneys who would have allowed this. I've seen judges allow marks to register that were closer than this. So this is actually a really good example of the gray area that you can find yourself in when you're doing the likelihood of confusion searches. So it's not totally clear. And this is where you would want a trademark attorney to help you out, because they can go into the register, they can look at the history of examination of similar marks with regard to these types of goods. In the past, have judges and examiners allowed marks to register when they're this close? Is there past dealings that might be relevant? All sorts of questions come up with one like this. And this is a great example of why you might want to hire an attorney. It's not always going to be as clear cut as shirts and pants. So like I said, I apologize. Very unsatisfying end of that section. Moving on to the strength of the trademark section. So what we want to do is avoid using trademarks that fail to indicate the source of goods and services. As we discussed, the very essence of a trademark is that it indicates the source of goods and services. And if you have wording that simply describes goods or services, describes an attribute of the goods and services, describes something about the company, then when consumers see that used in connection with those goods and services, they're not going to see that as a brand name. They're not going to see that as indicating where the stuff came from. They're just going to see it as describing the stuff in the package or describing you as an entity. So some examples are Apple Pie for potpourri. Well, that just sort of describes the smell of the potpourri. If you see Apple Pie on a bag of potpourri, you're not thinking of that as the brand name. You're just thinking of that as describing the smell of the potpourri. Similarly, there's a bed and breakfast registry for lodging reservation services. So if you're trying to book lodging somewhere and you see bed and breakfast registry, you're not going to view that as the brand name. You're just going to see that as describing the type of lodging service you can actually book. So these are the things you want to avoid when developing a trademark. We have a fun little thermometer right here. So what you really want to avoid is generic marks. Those are the absolute worst there at the bottom. Moving up, descriptive marks are better. They're not good and they're not strong, but they're better than generic. Then we have suggestive and at the top is fanciful and arbitrary. So generic terms are the common everyday names of goods and services and these are never registrable. You will never register a mark like this. For example, milk for dairy-based beverages. This also applies to specific types of goods and services. You won't be able to register barbecue, mustard, or chimichurri for sauces. So generic avoided all costs. Descriptive trademarks are a little better. They're not great, but they're better. And these directly describe something about the goods and services. They aren't just the name of the goods and services. These aren't registrable on the principal register unless there's a showing of acquired distinctiveness. So a good example of this is creamy whip for whipped topping. When that first came in, we said, well, no, absolutely not. That just describes the whipped topping. That's not a brand name. So the owners of that trademark went out. They used it for a while. Then they came back and they showed us all this evidence of their advertising and promotional expenditures, all the ads that they've put on TV and magazines. They showed us the section in the grocery store where they had a dominant portion of the whipped cream section. They said, listen, we've been using this so exclusively and continuously that people now associate creamy whip as a brand name. When they see that, they know that's coming from us. It's not just describing the stuff in the can. And we said, you know what? You're right. You showed us that this has acquired distinctiveness. So you can ultimately get descriptive trademarks on the principal register. It is an uphill battle, though. I would not recommend that if you can avoid it. Now we're in the arena of the good marks, the strong marks, and that is suggestive trademarks. And these suggest a quality of the goods and services. These are registrable. For example, copper tone for suntan lotion. So it suggests the copperish tone that your skin will take on if you use the product. Now, if they had come in for bronze skin, then we're back down in the then we're back down in the descriptiveness area. But copper tone, okay, you're suggesting something. It's a little bit removed from descriptive. This is a good trademark. Fancyful trademarks are invented words that have no meaning in any language. These are fantastic. These are incredibly strong marks. You know, you have Xerox for photocopiers. You have Kodak for film and cameras. Kleenex for facial tissue. Pepsi for soft drinks. Those are all examples of words that were completely made up and used as trademarks. Fantastic ones. And finally, arbitrary trademarks. So these are actual words, but there's no association with the goods and services. So for example, apple for computers. Computers aren't made of apples. They don't smell or taste like apples. At least, I don't think so. I've never actually tasted a computer, but I assume they don't taste like apples. And because the word apple doesn't describe any component or aspect of the computer, it's an arbitrary word. You also have gap for clothing and retail clothing stores. Blackberry for electronic devices. Those are all examples of arbitrary trademarks. And again, these are very strong and are an example of a fantastic trademark to use if you're trying to select a mark. And now finally, the knowledge check. So which of these two would be registrable? Bicycle for bicycles or bicycle for playing cards? I'll give the chat about five seconds. Playing cards. Fantastic. Yes, because bicycle for bicycles, that's the generic term. And as we discussed, that's never registrable. Whereas bicycle for playing cards is arbitrary. It's a real word, but it ostensibly has nothing to do with playing cards. Excellent. Moving on to filing and registration. We've discussed some of the pitfalls of selecting a trademark and how to avoid those. And now let's just say we've selected our trademark and we want to move forward. This right here is the basic timeline of the filing and registration process. So you submit the application. It lands on the desk of an examining attorney who performs the legal analysis of it. And let's just say there are no problems with it or there's only a very few minor problems that you and the examining attorney sort out. Once your application is in good enough condition, it moves on to publication. And the publication is where the public has a 30-day time period to oppose registration of the mark. And that's when you see some of these common law users come out of the woodwork. And they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Yeah, I know I see that you're trying to register cheetah for business consulting services. I've actually been using it over here in Washington State for the last 10 years. So I'm opposing registration of the mark. Typically that doesn't happen, but publication is where that can. And if no one complains, then ultimately you get your registration. But it's important to remember that not every trademark registers. It can run into snags, pitfalls. There are reasons that your application can't register. And if it does, ultimately, it'll abandon. Unfortunately, you're not paying for the trademark. The fee that you pay pays for the work of the attorneys and the admin officials who work on the examination process. So you notice I said fees. Let's go ahead and move on into that. So there's two filing options when you want to file your trademark. You can go through the T's plus avenue or the T standard avenue. So as you can see, T's plus is only 250 per international class, whereas T standard is 350 per international class. And the reason T's plus is cheaper is because there's more filing requirements upfront. The most notable of which is that when you're describing the goods and services with which you're going to use your mark, you have to select from our ID manual. Now don't let this worry you. Our ID manual is huge. I examined applications for six and a half years. I did several thousand applications. And I only encountered one individual who was doing something that was not already in our ID manual. So I highly recommend take the time, go through the manual, try and find what it is you're doing in there. Save yourself 100 bucks. Because worst case scenario is if you goof up your T's plus application, it gets bumped down to a T standard. So you'd be paying what you would have paid anyway. So take a crack at it, see if you can save a little money. And the total fees determined by how many classes you have in the application. It's 250 per international class. So if you have clothing, which is an international class 25, and jewelry, which is an international class 14, that's going to be 500 under the T's plus or 700 under the T's standard. So that difference in fee can start to add up as the goods and services mount. So application requirements. You want a clear drawing of the trademark, a listing of the goods and services that are used with a trademark. You want to include the filing basis for each good or service. And the filing basis, there's two different filing bases. You have a 1a use, and that's when you're already using the mark. That's going to require you to also submit what's called a specimen. And that is just it's it's evidence that you're already using the mark. It can be a picture of like a tag on clothing. It could be a picture of the trademark used on a website for the services you provide. But that is the 1a use filing base. You can also do a 1b intent to use filing basis. And that is when you're not using the trademark yet, but you're going to be using it within the next four years. And that's good if you're in the the early stages of planning out a business endeavor, and you want to make sure that you secure those intellectual property rights early. You know, you don't want to get halfway down the road, invest this time and money into a particular brand and say, okay, now I'm using it. Now I'm going to file only to realize that someone beat you to the punch. So that's a great way to use the 1b intent to use filing basis. You also need the contact information for the trademark owner and the filing fee, which as we discussed the 250 for T plus 350 for T standard. So these are some common basis for refusal. We discussed the likelihood of confusion and the merely descriptive. So you also have geographically descriptive. You can kind of think of that as a subset of merely descriptive in the sense that a geographically descriptive of the origin is just describing where the stuff comes from. For example, Cape Cod or potato chips. I actually had some of those earlier today. That's a geographically descriptive mark. You can also have a specimen that does not support use for listed items. So, you know, if you provide evidence that you're using this mark in connection with a particular set of goods and services, but it shows that you actually provide a different set of goods and services, that would be a specimen refusal. Finally, we have trademark used in an ornamental matter. So if you recall, a trademark is anything that indicates the source of goods and services, kind of like a brand name. So a lot of people will come in, they'll have like a really cool design or like a really funny slogan, and they'll print it really big on the front of a t-shirt. Well, that's great. But when consumers see that, they're not going to associate that with a brand name. They're not going to think that, okay, that's the brand of shirt. They're just going to see that as, okay, well, that's the decorative part of the shirt. And that's an ornamental refusal. So the registration responsibilities, you have to enforce your own trademark rights with regard to sending out a cease and desist letter, monitoring to make sure that no one else is using your particular trademark. Now once you register with us, if someone else tries to register something that's confusingly similar, we almost always catch that and we refuse their application. But it's still incumbent on you to be on the lookout for when people are filing something that's similar or using something that's similar out in the marketplace. So you must also file required post registration documents with the USPTO. I really want to stress this because a lot of people think that once they get their registration, they're good to go. There's nothing left to do. But after you get that registration, there's documents you have to file between years five and six and again between years nine and 10. If you receive a registration, all that information will be given to you with that registration. But just keep in mind for now that if you get a registration, that's not the end all be all. There's still maintenance that has to go into that. You also have to continue to use the trademark. So if at any point you stop using the trademark in a way that is not excusable, then your trademark rights will lapse. So file the maintenance documents, continue to use it, and then you're good to go. So are you guaranteed registration of your trademark? No, you are not. So every application must be examined before it's registered. There's a lot of reasons, whether it's a procedural deficiency or a substantive issue, that can ultimately cause your application to fail, that your mark does not register. So you'll have opportunities to overcome the deficiencies or argue against refusals, but ultimately at the end of the day, registration is not guaranteed. So if your trademark registers, do you have to do anything to keep the registration alive? Yes, you have to keep using the mark first and foremost, and you have to file the required post-registration maintenance documents. And we're getting close to the end here. How to find help. Now I hate including this slide, but it's just sort of a reality of the world we live in. Beware of scams. Unfortunately, when you file your trademark, your contact information becomes part of the public record, which is helpful in the instances where there is another user of a similar trademark, because then they can reach out to you and you can sort of hash out usage of the mark, who gets to use what, where, so on and so forth. However, it is a detriment because unfortunately, there are a lot of scammers that are trying to take advantage of applicants. And they will, they'll tell you, sorry about that, they'll, they'll tell you, hey, you know, we're with the USPTO and we notice this big problem with your application and you have to pay us $400 or your application is going to be canceled. Uh, things like that. So what you can do is what we have a trademark status and document retrieval system, TSDR, and I can show you that later. And that's going to be the official public record of every correspondence that we send out, everything that you send us, and anything related to that, your actual mark, so on and so forth. You need to go in there and check that if you receive an email saying, hey, you have to go do X, Y, and Z. If it's not in the official record, it's not coming from an official source. So keep that in mind. There are also filing firms that'll reach out to you and say, you know, hey, you know, we can, we can guarantee to get you your registration. We'll take care of all the filing for you. Don't even worry about it. As we said before, no one can guarantee your registration. You do have a lot of solicitations as well. Some of these are legitimate. Some of them are not. If it's something along the lines of, you know, hey, we're Bob and Joe law firm and we specialize in this, give us a call if you need help. That trends towards the more legitimate solicitation. It might get annoying, especially if you're getting 100 of these, but at least it's a legitimate solicitation. Generally, if they're asking for money, almost 100% of the time, I'm gonna say 100% of the time. I don't think we ever ask you for money in emails. If they're asking for money or telling you you have to send money somewhere, it's going to be a scam. So just be on the lookout. We also have our website. I have a lot of resources on there. You can browse through there, click on trademarks and just the world will be your oyster. We have some videos that you can watch that kind of give you the basics of trademarks, stuff we haven't talked about here. And then we have the trademark basics registration toolkit. I am a huge fan of this. It sort of goes over everything we've gone over today and has links to other resources that dig down a little deeper and give you more information. We also have the boot camps. And these are, it's an eight module course. It's a one hour program followed by 30 minutes Q&A held once a week. And then once you're done with it, we can give you a certificate if you'd like. But more importantly, you'll have a far more comprehensive understanding of the trademarks process and how you can get your trademark registered. So highly recommend this. This is the IP identifier. So if you're sitting around, you're saying, you know, I've created this thing, but I don't know what it is. Is it a copyright? Is it a trademark? Do I have a patent? What do I do? You can go here. It'll ask you a bunch of questions. Then at the end of it, it'll spit out, okay, well, you have a copyright, you have a patent, you have a trademark issue. And then you can go down the appropriate road. We also have free services and resources right there. And the virtual assistant. The virtual assistance in beta, it only covers about 25, most commonly asked questions, but, you know, it's free and it's easy. So, hey, why not give it a go. And finally, if you have trademark specific questions, we have the trademark assistance center. This is a fantastic resource. If you call them and they don't pick up, they usually pick up right away. So have your question ready. They'll call you back within a day. Conversely, if you would prefer to write out a more thorough description, you can send them an email. Final reminder, USPTO does not provide legal advice, enforce legal rights, and we unfortunately cannot recommend specific private attorneys. And congratulations. You've made it to the end of the presentation. So, I'd like to open it up to questions at this point. So if anyone has any questions, go for it. You can write them in the chat or Nick will handle it. Yeah, Kyle, first I want to say, wow, you outdid yourself on this one. This was a great presentation. Very easy to follow, might I add. So we do have some questions. Yeah, we do have some questions out there. And let me get to them here in the chat. One from social media, one from LinkedIn is from Pat Byrne. And that says, and you kind of covered it a little bit, but this might be a little bit different way of asking the question is to your knowledge, have there been trademarks that were strong years ago and then knocked down to a lower tier? And what is, and can you describe that? I think that would be helpful. Yes. I mean, that happens all the time. And it sort of illustrates the importance of enforcing your trademark, because some things start to slip out into the common parlance and everyday language. And once they do that, once they've been used for long enough as like a common generic term, they stop being a source identifier. So two really good examples of things that used to be trademarks used to be brand names, but now our generic are escalator and elevator. So when those first came out, those were very strong trademarks, but the public used them generically for so long, the company failed to enforce those trademark rights, and now they're generic terms. Now with that, I mean, is that something that that they have to, is there like a process to reduce that or lower that or they just kind of let the, let the registration go? Is that? I mean, each enforcement action is going to be a little bit different based on how the public's using it. But I mean, there's a lot of ways to enforce that trademark. When you see companies using it in a generic way, you know, you can reach out to them, send a cease and desist letter, talk to them, make a public announcement. I remember Nintendo back in the day when Nintendo games was starting to become a generic term. They would have big press releases that they would send out. They would say, listen, these are not Nintendo games. These are Nintendo brand video game cartridges. So there's a lot of different things you can do to preempt that and stop your trademark from becoming generic. But again, it sort of depends on who's using it and in what way. Yeah. Yeah, another, and I think along those lines, if you're, so if you're a business owner, we've talked a lot about getting started with a trademark, why, how to use it, you know, how to go through the process, what the process includes. What if you're saying, you know what, I'm at the end of my tenure as a business and I'm closing up shop, I'm going to get rid of this trademark or this of any marketing sort. What's the process for that? Well, you don't have to, like there's no requirement with us to wind it down. People just stop using their trademarks and go out of business all the time. We generally don't see that show up on our radar unless someone else is applying for a similar trademark and we say, no, no, someone else already has this trademark. There's a likelihood of confusion. And then they can come back and say, yeah, but no, look, they're not using it. They haven't used this in 10 years. And then at that point, it's not us as the examiners that goes through a different process, the TTAB. Then they would cancel that old trademark or conversely, the owner of that trademark would hit a 10 year point when they're supposed to file the maintenance documents and they just don't because they're not in business anymore and it would cancel. Or if you have a great trademark, a lot of goodwill behind it and you want to sell it, you absolutely can do that. There's a process for recording the new owner in our systems. But yeah, you can absolutely sell that trademark if you think that has value. Fascinating. Well, there was a question a while back and you did cover it in the beginning of the presentation, but Phil had asked about just kind of running through the differences between service mark and a trademark again. Oh yeah, that's really easy. So a trademark indicates the source of goods and services or sorry, trademark, see that's how interchangeable it is, even I'm doing it. A trademark technically indicates the source of goods or products and a service mark indicates the source of services. Like it's really just that simple. Really the only reason we introduce the concept is because applicants will go through the application process. Like yeah, trademark, trademark, trademark. And then suddenly they'll see service mark. Wait, what? I was applying for a trademark. What's going on? It doesn't matter. I mean, as you just saw, people use them interchangeably. We do it here at the agency too. If you're applying for a service mark and you call it a trademark through the entire process, that's fine. That's not going to affect you at all. Now, at the beginning I referenced that last year the USPTO office did IP basics and so on and so forth. So how does registering a trademark really differ from other forms of intellectual property registration? Sure. In basic form. So a patent is going and Jessica, this is where you can just jump right in if you think I'm stepping on your lines. So a patent is going to protect like an invention or a process. Your trademark is going to protect your brand name and a copyright is going to protect an artistic work. It's going to give you the right to publish that, to publish derivative works and things like that. So you do have intersection of those at times. You can have what is a copyright, like an artistic work, become a source indicator or a brand. Think, well, let's bring it back to Nintendo, Mario. Mario was an artistic work. It's a little character that was designed by Nintendo. But over time Mario became so well known that they put a little Mario logo on their products and you know that came from Nintendo. So that's an instance where you have something that is both a copyright and a trademark. Perfect. I think it's always helpful to hear the differences between those things on a high level. We have a lot of people with questions about that just, you know, in general. So we only have a few minutes left and I know we have a few people that are on the Zoom and I didn't know if anybody wanted to come on. I don't see anything in the chat, but come on and maybe ask a question. I'll give a minute or so, a couple seconds to see if anybody jumps on. Ask Kyle a question. Yes, no, maybe so. If not, we'll go into some announcements and wrap up. Doesn't look like it. All right. So one of the things I want to mention though, I know some of the viewers are on social media. So if there are questions on social media, we will certainly consult with Kyle and the team at USPTO and answer those questions on our social media. So if some questions arise after the fact that this is over, we will respond to the best of our ability to get those questions answered. And with that, want to briefly talk about some upcoming events before we round out the afternoon. And so first and foremost, with this being a caffeine connect, we have our next caffeine connect on January 11th between two and three Eastern time. And this topic is going to be presented by ADHD accelerators. It's a women's accelerator program in Cincinnati, and it's called side hustle without the hustle. So it's an interesting segment that they have about working on your side hustle. I think everybody will enjoy that. So again, that's on January 11th from between two and three PM Eastern. Also want to reminder that our bootcamp for our cohort in February, which is the seventh through the ninth of February here in Cincinnati in the Northern Kentucky area, we're accepting our application. So those applications are open. Please if you know anyone who's who's looking to grow their business, send them a link, you can access the links on PatriotBootCamp.org. Or if you're following our social media, which of course I always encourage you to do a DAB, Patriot Bootcamp either on Facebook or LinkedIn, you'll be able to access a lot of those links via the socials as well. And then speaking of social media, we always encourage people to follow there because not only do you get access to information, but you get to see we do a segment and actually there'll be one posted tomorrow on Founder Friday where we get to highlight some of our founders. It's an interesting way to keep up the date with some of the people rolling through the program. You never know, you might just find the contact that you want to reach out to. But it's a great way to see some of the founders that come through the DAB Patriot Bootcamp system. So check that out. And then lastly, where would we be without the volunteers and folks like Kyle and his team who come to our program? So one extend a special thank you for all you guys at the USPTO office for being such great partners and helping us out here on Caffeine Connect. And we appreciate all of our, all those of you out there and, and cyberspace and on Zoom who are tuning in and who will tune in into the future. Can't do without you and not that support. And then again, we just want to make sure we're reaching out to our veteran, veteran Newark community. So if you know any other veterans or spouses who are looking to get involved with entrepreneurship or looking to grow their business, please reach out to DAB Patriot Bootcamp. Thanks again, Kyle, for your, your excellent presentation. And with that, until next time, activate, mentor, create and grow Patriots.