Intellectual Property Law

I had intended the post for today to be a follow-up to these 2 posts:

O Romeo, Romeo & When Applications Go Wrong.

To sum up, these posts were about potential problems for the applications of Romeo & for La Bella Bella Maternity. And my intention had been to compare my predictions with how the USPTO interpreted the applications.

However, both of these applications have yet to be assigned to an examining attorney. Romeo filed on January 4th, which means it's been 72 days. La Bella Belly Maternity filed on January 17th, which means it's been 59 days.

Now, it's not news that the USPTO takes awhile to get things moving. But this lag in movement does go to show how vital it is to ensure that the name is legally available prior to filing.

Both of these marks have the potential of being refused for likelihood of confusion. Should that be the case, the USPTO will let the applicant know by way of an Office Action. Now, if either of these marks have to undergo a name change...well, that could've been avoided had research been completed first. Undergoing a name change months after time, effort & money has already been poured into a name is frustrating to say the least.

I'll devote another post to these 2 marks once their applications have moved to the next stage.

Full post as published by TradeMark Express: A Daily Blog on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).