Our Charleston trademark attorneys provide entrepreneurs, inventors, start-ups, small businesses and private companies with a full range of state and federal trademark legal services.
Initial Trademark Search
Trademark search and analysis
Performing a trademark search is essential for any start-up, entrepreneur or business selecting a new product, service or business name or design trademark. The aim of the trademark search is to determine if a client’s proposed trademark is available for use. Hiring an attorney to conduct a thorough trademark search will be beneficial in the long run to avoid a financial disaster or avoid a trademark infringement lawsuit, or both.
State Trademark Registration
South Carolina trademark laws allow for state registration of trademarks for local individuals, entrepreneurs and businesses who do not conduct commerce, use, sell, offer, advertise or promote the goods, products and/or services beyond South Carolina borders.
Federal Trademark Registration
Trademark registration, maintenance, and renewal
Filing for federal trademark registration provides various trademark benefits to business owners and entrepreneurs. Our Charleston based trademark law firm offers flat rate fees for the majority of our trademark services so entrepreneurs, inventors and businesses can afford to take advantage of the important benefits a federal trademark registration allows.
Our trademark attorneys, in addition to registering your trademark, will also handle the renewal of existing registrations to ensure continued protection of your trademark. In order to maintain a valid registration once a trademark is issued, the trademark owner must file renewal documents and pay fees between the 5th & 6th years after the trademark registration date, again between the 9th and 10th years after the initial trademark registration date, and every 10 years thereafter. Failure to renew your trademark will result in the cancellation of your registration, leaving you trademark unprotected.
Trademark Filing
Filing trademarks, preparing trademark applications, and prosecuting new trademarks
Filing for federal trademark registration and successfully obtaining a trademark registration provides various benefits to business owners. These benefits include the right to sue in federal courts, nationwide protection of trademark rights, the ability to recover money, use of the ® symbol, deterrence for others from using your trademark or similar trademark, and ability to stop cybersquatters from using your trademark in domain names, etc. To determine whether your business should seek federal trademark protection, please contact our Charleston trademark attorneys for help with your trademark matters.
Trademark Monitoring
Trademark monitoring services to deter infringers from using your trademark(s)
Once a trademark owner obtains a trademark registration, he or she is subject to numerous legal responsibilities. One of the main legal responsibilities he or she will assume is the active policing of the registered trademark in the marketplace as a way to deter potential trademark dilution and avoid trademark infringement. Failure to police your registered trademark or notify potential infringers, may result in the loss of federal trademark rights. To ensure you maintain maximum trademark rights under the law, our Charleston trademark law firm provides quarterly trademark monitoring services for an affordable annual fee.
Trademark Office Actions
Responding to issued USPTO trademark office actions.
Once you file an application for trademark registration, a USPTO examining attorney will review your application and if he or she has any concern with your application he or she will issue a notice called a trademark office action. Sometimes, the examining attorney may simply request additional information regarding the trademark. More often than not, however, the examining attorney will reject the trademark application by issuing a rejection or refusal. The most frequent bases for rejection are likelihood of confusion with an existing registered mark and genericness or descriptiveness of the mark for which registration is sought. Our South Carolina trademark attorneys have experience in responding to all different types of rejections and refusals.