Brian Russ Law, Inc. is a California trademark legal firm centered on helping corporations build and protect their brands and their business. We get the need to differentiate your brand from your competition. A small business owner and serial entrepreneur, lawyer Brian gets the struggles of small business owners and how securing brand protection is critical when setting your business apart from the competition. Brian works with corporations across California work through common trademarking issues like clearance searches, infringement assessment, trademark registration, USPTO office action responses, infringement litigation, use defense, and more. If you’re looking for top-notch trademark legal support in Tamalpais Valley, then you’ve come to the right place. You can also visit our trademark-specific website at BrianTheTrademarkLawyer.com.
Tamalpais Valley’s Trademark Attorney
What Is A Trademark Attorney?
A trademark attorney is someone with experience in trademark registration, protection, and litigation support who regularly works with creatives. Trademark lawyers can generally do most work on a flat-fee basis and operate independently of the larger firms that bill too much for too little. When choosing a lawyer to protect you’re the brand of your enterprise, make sure to work with a lawyer who has no problem working in Tamalpais Valley, like Brian Russ Law, Inc.
How Can a Trademark Law Firm Empower Your Business?
A trademark lawyer's role is to help their clients protect their brands. Businesses are in the best position to protect their name if they take a proactive strategy. The amount of money businesses spend on start-up products and marketing is enormous, and sometimes, they find out that their preferred name can't be used because another competitor has locked up the name. Intellectual property protection is important for startups, especially those that depend on their branding to engage customers. Give us a call if you want to lock down your company’s brand with federal trademark protection.
What To Look For In a Trademark Law Fim
The worst thing a business owner can do to protect their name is to do nothing. Even though it's easy to do some trademark forms on your own, you are at risk of doing something wrong and cleaning up the mess will take 5x the time, money, and effort of doing it right in the first place. A good United States trademark lawyer can help any size business in any industry across the world secure trademark protection in the United States. When choosing a trademark lawyer, consider their experience and online reviews as well as how personable they are. Your attorney should be someone you can talk to about your brand. The better the synergy, the better your brand will thrive.
The Top Three Areas Small Businesses Need Trademark Support
1. BUSINESS NAME REGISTRATION
Creatives often think LLCs and DBA/FBN statements keep their names from being violated and that they are not violating others. This is not accurate. Securing an LLC or a Doing Business As Statement does not equal trademark protection. The key problem is that the Secretary of State and your county recorder don’t cross-reference your business name with the trademark database. If you want to use your name for your business, you can get governmental approval but those agencies don't verify with the federal trademark database. As a business owner, you need to hire an attorney to find out if your company name infringes on someone else's trademark.
2. BRAND PROTECTION
Small businesses have a lot to worry about, but brand protection should not be one of them. Imagine this – you start a burger restaurant on the main drag of Tamalpais Valley called “Tommy Tequila’s Good Eats” and you spend years establishing your reputation. But you don’t take steps to federally register your trademark for “Tommy Tequila’s Good Eats”. Then, you happen to go to Vegas for the weekend, and you find a year-old restaurant with the same exact name as your business. Without federal trademark protection, you are limited when it comes to enforcement and protection, meaning there’s little you could do to stop the Vegas restaurant from using your name. Another hard scenario is how to deal with a cease-and-desist notice when your brand name is the same as one that was federally registered by another organization prior to you using yours.
3. INFRINGEMENT STRATEGY.
If you have a brand, then you need a strategy on what to do if someone infringes your brand. There are many cases where someone might innocently infringe your brand. Sometimes, having a lawyer send a demand letter to the infringer will make them stop. In other cases, where the infringer is intentionally and maliciously infringing your brand, you need to be prepared to take steps to fight them. A state lawsuit could be necessary to receive a temporary and permanent injunction to stop the infringer. You can also try to recover damages including lost profits.
Trademary Attorney Brian Russ is Here to Serve Tamalpais Valley Entrepreneurs
The answer is easy – callconnect with} Brian Russ Law, Inc. today. We’re fielding calls from potential new clients every day. Having an attorney on your team to protect your name can help you avoid costly mistakes and give you invaluable peace of mind.