Recent Trademark News

Home   Strategic Names    Trademark Search   Trademark Registration   TM Monitoring   Contact Us    Other Services

 IP Glossary    TMEP Manual     USPTO- FAQ About Trademarks

Free Initial Consultation!

Call Us at (248) 470-8014

Other Services

Trademark Searches and Assistance in Name or Mark Selection, Registration, Protection from Infringement, Cease and Desist Letters, Maintenance, Monitoring and Representation in Litigation.

Business Planning & Formation

Employer/Employee Agreements

Domain Name Protection and Infringement Litigation

Trade Secret Protection Strategies & Implementation   and Non-Disclosure Agreements

IP Licensing

IP Audits

Patent Searches, Applications, Office-Action Answers and Appeals, Monitoring, Infringement Litigation

Supplemental Registration

What is Supplemental Registration?

Marks that are capable of distinguishing goods or services but are merely descriptive, deceptively misdescriptive, primarily geographically descriptive, merely a surname, or marks that comprise a product configuration, slogan, or numeral that are not registrable on the Principal Register but are all registrable on the Supplemental Register.

Why would I want to use Supplemental Registration?

1. To Protect Your Name and Reputation for a mark that would not be initially protectable under a Principal Registration.

2. The owner of a mark on the Supplemental Register is legally entitled to use the ® symbol of federal registration.

3. Supplemental Registration allows the owner of the registered mark to bring an suit infringement in federal court and federal law will govern the case. A claim for unfair competition can be brought along with the infringement suit.

4. The Supplemental Registration can be used by a USPTO Examiner against future applications of confusingly similar marks for registration on either the Principal or Supplemental Register.

5. Marks on the Supplemental Register are easy to find by others and will appear in the future on search reports conducted by others to seek clearance for similar marks. The mere presence of the mark may deter others from using confusingly similar marks, protecting your name and reputation.

6. Marks on the Supplemental Registration may be registrable on the Principal Registration after acquiring secondary meaning.

More Questions

What is the Common Law part of a trademark search?

The common law part of our trademark searches includes sources not in the USPTO database and not generally available to the general public such as trade, industrial and publications databases, full-text articles, magazines, business directory databases, state trademark registrations, domain name registrations and international trademarks.

What are intangible assets? (From Wikipedia)

Intangible assets are defined as those non-monetary assets that cannot be seen, touched or physically measured and which are created through time and/or effort. There are two primary forms of intangibles - legal intangibles (such as trade secrets (e.g., customer lists), copyrights, patents, trademarks, and goodwill) and competitive intangibles (such as knowledge activities (know-how,knowledge), collaboration activities, leverage activities, and structural activities). Legal intangibles generate legal property rights defensible in a court of law. Competitive intangibles, whilst legally non-ownable, directly impact effectiveness, productivity, wastage, and opportunity costs within an organization - and therefore costs, revenues, customer service, satisfaction, market value, and share price. Human capital is the primary source of competitive intangibles for organizations today. Competitive intangibles are the source from which competitive advantage flows, or is destroyed.