Today I wanted to cover something that’s incredibly important: protecting your ideas. In this instance, I’m referring to trademarking your blog name.
This time last year, I realized something critical: I’d been developing a brand for (then) 5 years without any legal protection. If someone chose to use the name “CreativeStay,” there would be nothing I could do. Which is why I decided to register my blog name.
**Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I’m in no way, shape, or form an attorney. This is entirely based on my personal experience. I highly recommend doing some research and consider consulting an attorney before proceeding with trademarking any entity. I cannot be held liable for the validity of this information. Laws change all the time. I just wanted to document my experience and help those interested in trademarking their name.
Even though I consider this a personal blog and not a business, I would be devastated if anyone stole my blog name out from under me. It’s harder than ever to find a unique and compelling name with an available domain, and once you’ve built a brand or persona around it, it isn’t easy to rebuild.
Once you’ve decided to trademark your blog name, there are a two ways to proceed:
- Do it yourself on USPTO’s website (this is what I did)
- Hire a trademark attorney to file for you
After some initial research, I was certain that I’d need to hire a lawyer to help me with trademarking my blog name, but after consulting a friend who’s familiar with the process, I chose to proceed on my own. I want to reiterate that I was taking a risk in doing this myself, and every situation is different. That said, I found the filing process very intuitive and had my application approved. CreativeStay is now a registered entity, and I only had to pay the $275 application fee. Win!
If you choose to trademark your blog name yourself, I have a few tips:
- Be sure to do a preliminary google search as well as a USPTO search (their database is free and open to the public) to ensure no one with a similar name has been registered in your category
- Look through the application and decide which categories, described as goods and services, you’d like to file under (note that the more categories, the higher the cost)
- Decide whether you’d like to register the name, logo, and/or a symbol. You can do any combination of the three.
What the trademark application process looks like:
Once you file the application, it takes about 3-4 months for the USPTO to review your application.
If the USPTO is satisfied with your application, they’ll go ahead and publish your trademark application for review for about 30 days. This means it’s public for anyone to view, and if anyone opposes, you’ll have to appeal it. (Fortunately, I didn’t have to go that route.)
If no one opposes it, the USPTO will officially register your mark in about 2-3 months. On August 8, 2017 CreativeStay was officially registered! Note that your registration will last for about 5 years before you need to renew.
It feels really great to have my work protected. If you have something you’ve put a lot of heart into, I highly recommend pursuing a trademark. Let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll do my best to help answer!
xo,
T
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