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Trademark and international protection - Q & A

Mark from Bloomfield, Mich. calls in with some questions about trade marking and international protection.

Jeff Sloan: We’ve got Mark out of Bloomfield, Michigan.  Welcome to the show.

Mark: Thank you; thanks guys.  I sell different types of payment process and credit card processing, check processing, gift cards, things like that.  And I represent a multitude of banks.

Jeff Sloan: Gift cards are a big business these days.

Mark: Yeah it’s a– it’s a nice add on product and it’s good for everybody.  My question is we also represent these banks and multiple places in the world -- in the United Kingdom and Canada and the United States -- and I’m trying to market a brand for myself, a development brand, and I really don’t understand trademark, sevicemarks, how to protect the name internationally.  Can you guys give me some advice on that?

Rich Sloan: Yeah, what you’d be talking about to protect a name or a brand, as you said, is a trademark.  Trademarks protect both the written word and images as it relates to the name or identity, a brand of a product or company.  So what you wanna do is you wanna go to an intellectual property attorney and find out how to  get yourself a trademark on that name.  Now, remember one thing, one cautionary note:  trademarks, intellectual property of any kind, patents, et cetera, are very good when you have a problem in this country ‘cause we have a system that provides an opportunity for you to- even though it’s expensive here, to really do something about someone who may be infringing on it through our court system.  The challenge you’re gonna have is that even with intellectual property none of it’s any good unless you’re willing and capable to prosecute it should someone violate the trademark in- in one of those foreign countries.  So Canada, for example, may not be that big a deal but any third world country or any distant country may be a real challenge.

Jeff Sloan: It’s only as good as your ability to defend it is the point.

Mark:  Is there a comparable thing to a US trademark in those companies or is there an international type of a trademark or it doesn’t really exist?

Jeff Sloan: You can get international protection, it’s done through the US patent and trademark system, I believe.  But an intellectual property attorney is who you wanna go see and they’ll guide you on how to really build a portfolio of protection for yourself.

Rich Sloan: I know that the European Union has organized a centralized system for a way for you to cover all of the European countries involved in the European Union.  So that you can handle that in one fell swoop and there’s all sort of language translation related stuff as it relates to patents that they guide you through.  But as Jeff is indicating, you know, we always say go with the pros, identify a- a good intellectual property attorney and they will hold your hand through this process.  We also, at startupnation.com, and this is a- a hear- hear it everyone kind of a message, we’ve got the Ten Steps to Open For Business right from our homepage.  You click on that button at the top of the homepage.  It’ll take you to a series of resources in ten easy steps.  One of those steps is protecting your assets and we include in that a discussion of how to protect your intellectual property.  We’ve got some great links there with online services you can use to begin protecting your intellectual assets.  Good luck to you Mark.  We wish you well.

Mark: It’s a good show, I appreciate it.