Brian Russ Law, Inc. is a California trademark law firm focused on helping companies build and protect their brands and their business. We get the need to differentiate your brand from your competitors. A small business owner and serial entrepreneur, lawyer Brian recognizes the worries of small business owners and how securing brand protection is critical when setting your business apart from the competition. Brian works with corporations across the Golden State work through common brand 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 guidance in Vineyard, then you’ve come to the right place. You can also check out our trademark-specific website at BrianTheTrademarkLawyer.com.

What Is A Trademark Attorney?

A trademark lawyer is a lawyer who specializes in practicing in the field of trademarks. 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 logo of your company, make sure to work with a lawyer who has no problem working in Vineyard, like Brian Russ Law, Inc. 

How Can a Trademark Lawyer Help Your Business?

A trademark attorney’s job is to help businesses protect their brands and make sure other people don't infringe on them. Companies need to assess brand protection before they launch or shortly thereafter. Our firm's seen so many businesses drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on merchandise and marketing only to find that they can't use their preferred name. Intellectual property protection is a key element for startups - especially those that heavily rely on brand recognition to drive consumer engagement. You can save time and legal costs by calling us to conduct a clearance search prior to launching your brand. 

What To Look For In a Trademark Law Fim

The worst thing a business entrepreneur 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 attorney can help any size company in any industry across the globe secure trademark protection in the United States. The things you should consider when securing legal support for your trademark is the experience of the lawyer, their online reviews, and how personable they are. Your lawyer should be someone you can talk to about your brand. The better the synergy, the more your business will thrive. 

The Top Three Areas Small Businesses Need Trademark Support

1.	BUSINESS NAME REGISTRATION
Entrepreneurs often think LLCs and DBA/FBN statements keep their names from being violated and that they are not violating others. This is not correct. Securing an LLC or a Doing Business As Statement does not equal trademark protection. The main issue here is that the Secretary of State and your county recorder don’t cross-reference trademarks with business names. 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. It's important for any business owner to retain a lawyer to assess the trademark risk of using their business name. 
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 sandwich restaurant on the main drag of Vineyard 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”. Life can be a gamble sometimes. You end up in Vegas and find out that your restaurant has the same name as a year-old pub on The Strip. Sadly, your options for enforcement and protection would be limited since you have no federal protection for your brand’s name and the Vegas diner is across state lines. An even more common – and still tricky – situation is what to do if your name brand logo was federally protected by a third party before you started using yours. 
3. INFRINGEMENT STRATEGY.
Make sure you have a strategy in place to protect your brand if someone infringes your brand. There may be cases where others infringe on your brand without realizing it. Sometimes, having a attorney send a demand letter to the infringer will make them stop. If someone is intentionally copying your trademark identity to make a profit, then you will need to take steps to stop them. A federal lawsuit might be needed to obtain 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 Vineyard Creatives

The answer is easy – callconnect with} Brian Russ Law, Inc. today. We’re fielding calls from potential new clients every day. Having an lawyer on your team to protect your name can help you avoid costly mistakes and give you invaluable peace of mind.