One of the things I love about my job is having the opportunity to help my friends with their legal needs. My dear friend Suzanne Burns had the dream of opening her own yoga studio, and she made that dream a reality last month. She meticulously planned every detail of her studio, right down to the trademarks. She adopted the HUMBLE HAVEN YOGA trademark to symbolize the safe haven and community that she aimed to create through her studio, and she developed a design mark that consisted of two yogis in tree pose to form the letter "H." Her marks are prominently displayed on her website:
As cheesy as this may sound, preparing the trademark applications for Humble Haven Yoga definitely gave me the warm and fuzzies. She filed applications to register both HUMBLE HAVEN YOGA and the Humble Haven logo. As Suzanne did, it's always a good idea to file trademark applications as soon as you have the intention of using the mark in commerce.
Trademark rights are established by use of a mark as a source identifier for your products or services. While registration is not required, it is highly recommended. A federal trademark registration gives you the presumptive right to the exclusive use of your trademark throughout the entire United States. A registration also serves as public notice that you have rights to the mark, and it allows others to find (and hopefully avoid) you if they are running a search to choose a new name. A trademark has a broader scope of protection than a business name, and neither exact duplication nor tiny differences are permitted. Trademarks not only have to be different; they have to be distinctive so that consumers can tell the difference between you and the next guy without being confused. Once Suzanne adopted her marks, we ran a search to confirm that her marks were unique source identifiers. Upon clearance of the marks, we filed her trademark applications. I'm excited to say that we can allege "use" of both marks.
For more information about Suzanne's yoga journey, visit humblehavenyoga.com
The lawyers at Trademarkology provide trademark registration services backed by the experience and service of one of the nation's oldest law firms. Click here to begin the process of protecting your brand name with a federally registered trademark.
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