Trademarks

Trademarks, which indicate to customers and purchasers the source or origin of goods, are an integral and valuable component of an intellectual property portfolio. Service marks, as the name suggests, perform the same function for services.

In fact, your trademarks may have value greater than your other intellectual property assets because they are your customers’ means of identifying you and your products (services) in the vast world of commerce. Moreover, they often cost little to acquire and for as long as they are used, rights therein are maintained and can extend into perpetuity.

Attorneys at Vivacqua Crane have access to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) databases of live and abandoned applications and registrations as well as state and common law databases to perform clearances. More importantly, they know how to interpret the flood of data such searches often generate.

Their familiarity and experience with the administrative rules of patent practice before the USPTO well prepare the attorneys at Vivacqua Crane for interactions with the trademark side which issue federal trademark and service mark registrations. State registration of trademarks may also be readily achieved, if desired.

During or after the federal registration process, a conflicting trademark use by a third party may be detected and our attorneys have successfully undertaken and resolved such inter partes matters as oppositions and cancellations at the USPTO.

Occasionally, trademark disputes resist negotiation and settlement and attorneys at Vivacqua Crane are prepared to assert your trademark rights in the federal and state courts. Because our attorneys are licensed to practice in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois litigation in these states can be undertaken directly and with minimum expense.