Did you know that whoever uses a trademark in a certain geographical location has precedent in that location?

Pankaj Raval, a trademark lawyer in Los Angeles, wants to share some advice with you.

If you’re not quite ready to hire a lawyer to hire for a trademark, you can at least start using that trademark in commerce.

This at least protects you if someone else wants to start using that name. Even if you haven’t filed, you get precedent in that geographical area!

So it’s a good idea to start using your trademark in commerce to make sure you take precedence before other potential users of that trademark.

If you need to know more, Pankaj is always here as a trusted advisor.

“If you’re not ready to hire a lawyer, but you really want to protect your trademark, I suggest start using that trademark in commerce. You can engage in some commercial activity, make sales, ship it somewhere, sell something with it.

So the risk is that if someone uses that name before you in commerce, now they have rights to that name in that geographic location. So in the event that you actually do get a trademark or file a trademark, they could come back and say, hey,

I’ve been using this before you, and they would have legal rights to use it in that geographic location.

We’ve had instances where people develop a brand, really excited about it, spend a lot of money on designers, but wait to file the trademark because they’re not sure what’s going to happen with that brand. In the meantime, someone else in another part of the country starts using that name.

Now we have a problem, because now that person who’s using that name in another part of the country has rights over our client in the geographic area.

The most important thing is, if you don’t want to spend the money on a trademark, if you’re not ready to go talk to a lawyer, at least start using that name, using the trademark in commerce, so you have some geographic, local protection.”