Brian Russ Law, Inc. is a California trademark legal firm focused on helping companies build and protect their brands and their business. We get the need to distinguish your brand from your competitors. A small business owner and serial entrepreneur, attorney Brian understands the worries of small business owners and how securing brand protection is vital when setting your business apart from the competition. Brian works with businesses throughout 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 advice in Woodside, 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 attorney is someone with experience in trademark registration, protection, and litigation support who regularly works with small businesses. Trademark attorneys 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 business, make sure to work with a lawyer who has no problem working in Woodside, like Brian Russ Law, Inc. 

How Can a Trademark Attorney Support Your Business?

A trademark lawyer's job is bedeviling simple - to help businesses protect their brand. Companies are in the best position to protect their name and logo if they take a proactive strategy. Our firm's seen many businesses make the error of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on merchandise and putting in hours of marketing time only to find out they can't use their preferred logo. Intellectual property is a critical issue for startups, especially when the brand and recognition are primary drivers of revenue from target users. Give us a call if you want to lock down your business's name with federal trademark protection. 

What To Look For In a Trademark Lawyer

The worst thing a business owner can do to protect their name is to do nothing. Equally problematic to doing nothing when working on trademarks is to DIY it without an attorney's support. We find the best trademark lawyers are like our firm - experienced in helping businesses of all sizes from across the globe in a variety of industries. When you're looking for legal support for your trademark, the most important things are their experience and how personable they are. It’s important to find an attorney with who you can comfortably discuss brand strategy because that will lead to the strongest synergy for your business. 

The Top Three Areas Small Businesses Need Trademark Support

1.	BUSINESS NAME REGISTRATION
We commonly see entrepreneurs think that setting up an LLC or filing a DBA/FBN statement means their business name is trademarked and safe from dispute. This is not accurate. Setting up an LLC or a Fictitious Business Name Statement does not equal trademark protection. 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. It's important for any business owner to retain a lawyer to assess the trademark risk of using their business name. 
2. BRAND PROTECTION
Brand protection is vital for most small businesses. Imagine this – you start a taco shop on the main drag of Woodside called “Tommy Tequila’s Good Eats” and you spend years building your reputation. But you never get around to registering a federal trademark for “Tommy Tequila’s Good Eats”. You happen to go to Vegas for the weekend, and you find a year-old pub 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 pub from using your name. An even more common – and still hard – 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.
It is important to have a plan in place in case someone infringes on your brand. It's important to be aware of how your trademark might be infringed on by people. Sometimes, having a attorney send a demand notice to the infringer will make them stop. In other cases, where the offender is purposefully A federal lawsuit could be necessary to get a temporary and permanent injunction to stop the infringer. You can also try to recover damages including lost profits. 

Trademary Lawyer Brian Russ is Excited to Serve Woodside Companies

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 brand can help you avoid costly mistakes and give you invaluable peace of mind.