Most people are aware of the numerous benefits of having a trademark registration on the Principal Register of your United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In fact, trademark owners are urged by trademark attorneys to select distinctive marks in order to be able to, upon easily use in interstate commerce, be registered there and watch numerous presumptions such as validity, ownership, and Online TM Public Search India notice. However, the Supplemental Register even offers value, especially as soon as the alternative is away from the question at the beginning.
Before the advantages of being supplementally registered is discussed, when you understand that that your supplemental registration does not provide. Marks tend to be relegated to the Supplemental Register because, at the request of the USPTO examining attorney, the marks are merely descriptive and therefore not a distinctive identifier of the source of the services or goods to which the objective pertains. Such placement does not pay the exclusive right also included with the mark in commerce in experience with its identified goods or services. Equally important, it does not serve as prima facie evidence of your validity of the registered mark or of the trademark registrant’s ownership of this mark. Finally, it may an admission that the mark is not inherently distinctive.
While these drawbacks obviously warrant a mark owner’s wish to be registered on the principal Register, a supplemental registration has advantages of its own. In fact, some entities choose to possess a brand that tells consumers what is actually always they are offering (e.g. Pizza Restaurant) as opposed for inherently distinctive mark (.e.g. Domino’s) that requires effort to create consumer recognition. Such marks are not going to warrant principal placement, though they be supplementally licensed. After five years on the Supplemental Register, the mark may qualify for the key Register due going without running shoes having acquired distinctiveness. It is worth noting that both allow the owner to use the registered trademark symbol, sue in federal court, and profit by certain international treaties.
Thus, any registration with the USPTO is better than having no trademark registration at all. While ultimately the Principal Register provides the best results and best protection, the Supplemental Register should be considered where an entity prefers what is probably a merely descriptive mark at the outset or didn’t acquire the requisite distinctiveness to be registered on where many deem as favored spot.