r/TRADEMARK

out of curiosity, from reading all the posts on here, it’s pretty obvious a lot of the trademark service websites are scams of sorts. I couldn’t find much on this one called ”TrademarkEfficient“ I mean it sounds like a scam out the gate, so I decided to investigate it. Pretended to submit an application. I stopped halfway through but was getting call after call from them. Answered eventually and continued the process to see what they would pull potentially. I got in contact with their trademark “officer“, looked into his bar number:254898 Supposedly, he got it in California but has an address of Potomac, MD. He does exist on the search for the bar but very little information. Then searched them up on the USPTO website, no dice.

Eventually, I took the call from said Edward Dean (they always use very generic US names). I told them I couldn’t afford to pay for all the classifications I wanted, and they said they could do a payment plan. I declined and asked for a refund. they issued a refund to me still pending.

Is Trademark Efficient legit? I know it’s advisable to use a trademark attorney or do a thorough submission dyi. Any experience with them?

I recently made a tiktok named joywaze if I grew it could waze sue me for trademark and make me change it?

I'm going through the process of my trademark application. I got an email that looked legit- had the uspto.gov; said she was for managing IP (katherine Franco) from Texas (im from Indiana); had me make a payment for my attestification.

But then I called another attorney from another uspto email (Eric Smith) and he said they don't call people; call my bank and get my money back. Then the IP lady emailed me with a clearance certificate form to sign and send back.

Am I being scammed? Do I need the clearance form? I already did my own research and my company name is unique. Help please!

Curious about this — my lawyer submitted a trademark(US) for Bulabuu Labs ("Bulabuu" is made up for this post). He mentioned that "Labs" is one of those words that can't be covered on its own, but when you submit a bigger phrase, the individual components are covered.

Is it recommended to also/amend trademark Bulabuu only? The company is called Bulabuu Labs, "Bulabuu" is the product name, and we plan to have future variations like Bulabuu XXXX or Bulabuu YYYY — all within the same product class(software stuff).

I have a very unique running singlet design that I wanted to file a copyright for and a name on the back for the running team/club. I'm not sure how to proceed. The initial intent is just to sell it to raise money for charity, but potentially create a run club focused on charity runners if the demand is high enough.

Any Suggestions?

Hi all,

My partner has built up a small business over the last 3 years. During this time we ensured there was no other business in the state with the same name and thought we were good to go.

Today we got an email from the a business owner with the same name in another state. They also have had it federally trademarked for over a decade. We did not even consider to check this, and it is our bad. They are giving us a week to change the businesses name.

We are wondering what our next steps are. We assume a consultation with a trademark attorney, but are unsure how to find a reputable one. We checked the subreddit and did find a couple to reach out to though.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I’m starting a plumbing company and had a couple questions regarding name selection. Almost anything I can come up with that sounds catchy has already been taken in my state. Ultimately I decided on “Primetime Plumbing” a year ago but I now see that someone about an hour away is using “Prime Time Plumbing Services”. I am not officially conducting business yet as I have 4 months until I have the appropriate plumbing license to do so but when I am conducting business our service areas will overlap to a degree. He has not filled his annual registration yet and will be dissolved by the state June 1 if he doesn’t do so. My question is can I use the name primetime plumbing even if he is dissolved or because he is already conducting business with it (has a google page a website as well) and was first to use it in the field does he have first right to it? I’m not married to the name I just don’t want a legal dispute down the line and be forced to change names after being established.

My first choice in name is my last name (Ferguson) Plumbing. The issue is that Ferguson enterprise is a huge nationwide plumbing supply shop. There is no one in my state operating a plumbing service company with the name Ferguson Plumbing but I assume this name is too similar to Ferguson Enterprise and in the same field so it probably can not be used by me?

Thanks for any insight

I started a business that helps people who have inherited property or are needing to downsize to assisted living and have a home that needs to be sold. We offer estate sales, clear outs, renovations and home sale services. Our name is compassionate real estate solutions or CRES. We registered our website in 2022 and created and started marketing our brand name CRES IN 2023. Recently a new business popped up that does similar services to us calling themselves coastal real estate services and goes by CRES. They are in the same exact area we are and they offer similar services. I do not have a trademark on CRES. Do I have any recourse against them to get them to stop using CRES since we established the name first and have been operating under its name longer than them.

hey, has anyone been filled for a lawsuit for trademark/ copyright for using a brand's logo on f. e., a phone case? recently got a huge email, which looks real, with all of the legal papers for using a trademarked logo. my etsy balance was probably always in the negative, i have made 1 single sale and it was made by the trademark company. the firm demands 1k$ and i get written off, or later they said they could sue me for even 2M. i am a broke student from Europe, and the US is after me? how

I have the name I absolutely want for my new business—it fits in with the brand story perfectly and after months and months of consideration I landed on it. It passes all tests including uspto and domain. However in doing last minute due diligence, I discovered there is a relatively unknown rum company in the United States using the name. I don’t know how I missed it but there it is. AI says even though they’re different categories there’s still a risk of confusion due to the nature of the lifestyle marketplace.

Is this true? Do I have to start over?

Hey everyone,

I’m in the process of trademarking the name for a small business operating in the IP / technical services space and wanted to get some recommendations from people who’ve gone through the process before.

I’ve spent some time reviewing the USPTO resources and noticed they mention that self-filing is possible, but they still strongly recommend working with a U.S.-licensed trademark attorney depending on the situation. Since this is something I’d rather do correctly from the beginning, I’m leaning toward working with someone experienced instead of trying to figure everything out myself.

Does anyone here have recommendations for attorneys or smaller firms that were good to work with, especially for startups or technical businesses?

Not really looking for the large “trademark mill” type services — more interested in someone responsive and knowledgeable who can help avoid mistakes early on.

Appreciate any suggestions or experiences.

I have been researching my brand name that I want to trademark however, my brand has 2 generic names in it that has been trademarked. My brand has 3 words with 2 of them being them same generic name. I looked up the USPTO website and their name was registered last year. I also did a search of the trademarked name to see if the trademarked name was being used consecutively and i see non. Further research i see the person runs another clothing brand and is using the trademark name more of an ornament design. Its not the core.

Their specimen first used in ecommerce on September 15, 2012. I have an old email from Big Cartel of my ecommerce use dated July 7, 2012. I can't access any of the old invoice since it was past 10+ years ago. Is that enough for me to get my brand name trademarked?

I also have people who posted my clothing brand that tagged my brand page on Instagram from back in September 7 2012. It also clearly shows my brand name on my tshirt, sunglasses, and shopping poly bags. So, i have time way before their September 15, 2012 date. Do i have a chance?

As I plan more fantasy-adjacent stories, I am finding it hard to avoid trademarks. There are so many combo words that one wouldn’t think twice about, but many are trademarked. These aren’t ones I’ve looked up, but as an example, I mean terms like:

Windmage

Hedgewitch

Sun-person

Stormborne

Or even just combos, like:

He used his Powerball spell. (lottery name)

He cast the strongest summoning-spell the land had seen.

He wasn’t human. He was Sunborne.

I am finding that a lot of these trademarks are indie game studios and board games. However, small game studios get bought by big games or Microsoft. I am told that being more generic still isn’t sage, because of course, there are plenty of word combos that are still dangerous. (dawn of the dead, assassin’s creed, etc.; white wizard is a board game mark)

It’s driving me a bit crazy. Computer games are not books, but they are still in the electronic media category, which overlaps with e-books; furthermore, many games do publish some sort of companion book or game-influenced story series at some point.

Let alone just checking existing titles, famous characters, names of TV shows or movies, etc.

For example, I didn’t even know that “Ironheart” is a Marvel comic and TV show. (thankfully I thought to check)

How much do any of you who deal with such terminology worry about it?

Now I don't know if this is the right subreddit; I can't find a more suitable one. This is just curiosity, also.

Anyway, I recently started reading some fiction, and in this book, Mickey Mouse stuff is in a hypnotist's clinic, and it isn't a mere passing mention but it goes into detail on them, it impresses clients, and they have a conversation about it. Then there's a game of Scrabble which gets sinister, real freaky, and is a key point in the story, and that's not a flattering portrayal of someone's intellectual property.

Do non-visual books get a lot more leeway in this as opposed to comics, TV, films, and video games, which are visual mediums, with the latter one being interactive?

Do things like this in books require consent of the trademark holders? And if not but the others do, is that because books like this are not visual while those others are and that being visual change the law?

Another book described in detail a Chewbacca poster hanging in a girl's bedroom, and it seems to me it wouldn't be that simple to just feature it in films and TV.

I just find it surprising how books seem use trademarked stuff so freely compared to other media where it would be called product placement, has to be agreed with the holders, and they are protective of how their products/brands are depicted.

Or do I utterly misunderstand the laws?

I’ve been researching online trademark marketplaces recently (Communer, Trademark Marketplace, US Trademark Exchange, etc.) and honestly the entire space feels oddly stuck in time.

A lot of these platforms look like they were designed 20+ years ago and haven’t evolved much since. The business models also vary wildly:

• listing fees
• commissions on sale
• legal/processing fees
• brokerage add-ons
• transfer fees

Sometimes all of the above.

What surprised me even more is how passive many of these marketplaces seem to be once a trademark is listed.

The listing process itself appears heavily automated and optimized to avoid manual work for platform operators (sometimes it looks like one person can run the whole site). But after submitting a trademark, there often seems to be very little actual marketing happening:

• no visible advertising campaigns
• no startup outreach
• no buyer targeting
• little SEO effort
• almost no social visibility
• little transparency around actual sales volume

In many cases it feels like:
“list it and wait to see if someone eventually finds it.”

The pricing is another interesting aspect. You’ll see trademarks listed anywhere from a few hundred dollars to millions, often without much explanation for the valuation difference besides “premium brand.”

As a seller, it’s also hard to know:

• how many buyers actually browse these platforms
• how many trademarks are successfully sold
• whether inquiries are common or rare
• what conversion rates look like
• how trademarks are actively marketed after listing

The overall impression I get is that many platforms are functioning more like static directories than active marketplaces.

To me, it feels like trademark sales would work better with:

• stronger startup/founder outreach
• modern branding presentation
• AI-generated mockups and visuals
• niche targeting (AI, fintech, ecommerce, etc.)
• LinkedIn/X marketing
• SEO landing pages
• transparent analytics
• curated collections instead of giant databases
• actual brokerage/business development efforts

I also wonder whether using a trademark lawyer or IP law firm to help promote or broker a sale adds any real value today, or whether most of the actual marketing still falls on the seller.

Do lawyers meaningfully help with:

• buyer sourcing
• negotiation leverage
• credibility
• valuation
• legal packaging
• closing larger deals

…or are they mainly useful once a buyer has already been found?

Curious what others here think.

If you were trying to sell a trademark or premium brand name today, how would you approach it?

Would you rely on marketplaces at all, use a trademark lawyer/broker, or focus more on direct outreach and independent marketing?

So what happened is that I started a brand new channel with the username Emulatrix, with my own designed character called Catt (just like me) and 100% original content, mostly focused on curiosities about videogame consoles, tutorials and gameplays.
The name "Emulatrix" was only used in my channel's username and it was written in the banner, never I even mentioned it in any of my videos or posts.

This name was available in YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, Discord and many more, so I thought "ok seems like it can be used" right?
Well, after only 2 days of getting the partnership offer from YouTube and being all excited and happy, I get this trademark claim because someone registered "Emulatrix" for a website-project... and they shut down my channel, just like that. Without any given chance of letting me change the username or anything, not even allowing me to start any new channel under my name ever again.

I tried contacting this man over emails and linkedin, but he just keeps ignoring me, I didnt earn anything during this time cus ofc with only 2 days monetizing youtube didnt pay me anything. But now only because of this name issue I have to say goodbye to my dream of working on youtube???

Legal team told me : "We've reviewed your appeal and determined that we're unable to reinstate your content"

So I tried once again kindly asking to review the situation cus this makes NO sense to me. Why wouldI lose everything cus of a name when I didnt even make a single penny from it? And letting them know I was unaware of the existence of this other project under the name and Im 100% willing to change it!

Upfront: I'm not selling anything, I'm not launching anything, and this isn't a stealth marketing post.

A little background: I'm an employee (I have a BA in Legal Studies, but not an attorney) for a company who has been deeply involved in trademark registration for their own marks. Having previously used an attorney for filings, the focus shifted to doing it in-house and I have been tasked with this responsibility. Out of that experience, I built an internal AI-powered trademark clearance tool for my own use — purely to help me do better preliminary research before making a decision on whether or not engaging counsel would be needed.

It started as a Google Sheet that displayed all of the mark details, then I added a tool that would connect to the USPTO database and automatically update our current Marks. After that I added a deadline engine that would calculate any upcoming deadline windows (📅 Sec 8 & 15 window opens Oct 17, 2028 (in 895 days) | 📅 Sec 9 Renewal: opens Oct 17, 2032 (in 2356 days) | Reg: Oct 17, 2023) with email reminders. That's when I realized that I really needed to go further because I was presented with a list of about 20 Marks that the company wanted to register, and the list kept growing, currently at about 30. I was also getting email/message requests every time our Product Development team came up with a new name to check it for them.

So I expanded the tool, and in the process, I was re-filing for the Marks that our previous attorney change (moving to in-house with no specific plan) had resulted in lapse of coverage. All while re-filing for marks and expanding the tool, I was made CIPO (Cheif Intellectual Property Officer) for the company allowing me to act directly with USPTO instead of having to forward and reply and reforward documents, etc.

The Tool:

The tool analyzes a proposed mark and produces a structured clearance report covering:

• Likelihood of confusion analysis across relevant classes
• DuPont factor breakdowns
• Identification of potentially conflicting registrations and applications
• Strength/distinctiveness assessment
• A plain-language risk summary

I've been refining the output format and the underlying prompting logic, but I have no way to know how well it holds up against what an actual trademark attorney would consider thorough or useful. That's where I'm hoping someone here might help.

What I'm asking: *NDA's are available*

1. I would really prefer that if any practicing trademark attorney would be willing provide a mark that you have run a clearance search on, either by a service or internally, I will run a search and provide you the report output. If you could review it and tell me where it falls short, over-reaches, misses nuance, or gets things right.
2. If you are not a practicing attorney but you are using a service for clearance searches, I would be willing to run a search on a Mark that you have run through that service and then trade search results.

No sign-ups, no product pitch. Just a guy trying to build something useful for himself and wanting a sanity check from people who actually know this area of law.

If it turns out that the tool is good, even as a starting point for your more in-depth search, I would be willing to give you detailed instructions (limited license) on how to build this so that it would be up and running within a week.

Right now, each search is costing about $1.07 but I am also looking at a few things that could possibly bring that down even more.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to engage.

ETA: This is in the US only.

Say I want a certain username on Instagram for my band for example. The account doesn’t exist that I can see however Instagram says it is not available. It is my understanding I could file a trademark for it and then fill out the form on Instagram in hopes that they will grant me access to the username.

My question is, what would I actually file as a trademark? Do I include a space in the actual trademark since usernames do not allow for spaces? For example if I want to trademark a name like Tarzan Jones, would I file it as “Tarzan Jones” or “tarzanjones”? What category of trademark do you think would be best to file under?

Cheers!