Is it important to register your trademarks right off the bat?

>>1083565

No.

New biz people get way too caught up in regs and law before they even start selling something.

Sell something. Worry about the other shit once thousands are entering your bank account.

>>1083643
Do you know where I can find out the protections for my unregistered trademark? Some asshole is starting ot use my companies name in a way that can cause confusion between our two businesses. I've registered my company about 2 years before he started and he hasn't even registered a company. I haven't filed for TM registration with the gov though.

I can find online that I stil lhave protections as an unregistered trademark but I can't find information on what they are.

Do I have legal rights to my company's name here?

>>1083661

IDK about the legality but just call the guy and ask him to stop.

If that fails then call a lawyer and ask him to draw up a letter of intent. It is usually $100 - $200. Then have that lawyer send a letter to the guy. 90% of the time, the guy buckles and does what you need.

A "letter of intent" is basically just a legal jargon heavy letter from a lawyer that tells a guy you intend to sue him if he does not change what he is doing.

People are scared of lawyers.

>>1083735
Thanks friend.

Also, is the legal zoom business pro service any good for getting legal advice?

It's some service where you pay around $300 a year to be able to scheduled 30min appointments with lawyers for legal advice.

http://www.legalzoom.com/attorneys/legal-plans/business.html#

Thinking about signing up for this.

>>1083802

No.

All the internet based law services are pure shit. They don't even give legal advice in most cases, they just give you some of the basics and then refer you to a lawyer nearby. It's total horseshit.

Just google lawyers in your area. Call 2 or 3. Any good lawyer should be able to discuss the basics for 5 minutes or so before asking you for money.

Once money gets involved a decent lawyer will usually want $100/hr for their time. So be as efficient as you fucking can.

>>1083870
They claim that they connect you with lawyers in your local area for advice.

It does make sense that it wouldn't be very good advice for so cheap though. I'll look up a lawyer in my area.

>>1083941

Right well you are basically paying those sites for something you could get for free.

They'll connect you with a local lawyer, then that lawyer will give you his free 5 minutes of general advice, then if you want to continue and really hammer out the details that lawyer will ask you to pay for actual services and so on, etc...

So like I said, you're better off talking to a couple lawyers in town then choosing one and buying a little advice/service.

Basically how it works in the US and Canada is that your legal rights to the name start when using the name during commerce. However you still need to trademark to enforce it. If you don't and someone else fills a trademark and gets through the entire process (several months) you are shit out of luck. You can wait a couple months until after you launch but its going to likely be cheaper in the long run to do it asap.

If you send a letter of intent without holding the trademark rights let alone not even starting the process he could easily jump the gun, than you will have to have a trademark lawyer go to court for you and you could even up up losing it. Trademarking should cost around $1500 without a second party challenging it, a contested trademark could cost upwards of 10k even more if your going against someone with deep pockets.

I've gone through the process for my startup. I did it because my branding is quite unique though. If your are doing something like john smith llc it might not as important.