Most people are aware of the numerous benefits of owning a trademark registration on the Principal Register of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In fact, trademark owners are urged by trademark attorneys to select distinctive marks in a position to be able to, upon use in interstate commerce, be registered there and revel in numerous presumptions because validity, ownership, and notice. However, the Supplemental Register also provides value, especially when the alternative is your own the question at the beginning.
Before the great things about being supplementally registered is discussed, when you understand that that your supplemental registration doesn’t provide. Marks frequently relegated to the Supplemental Register because, at the request of the USPTO examining attorney, the marks are merely descriptive and therefore not a distinctive identifier of supply of the services or goods to which the potential pertains. Such placement does not pay for the exclusive right on this the mark in commerce in expertise of its identified goods or services. Equally important, it does not serve as prima facie evidence of your validity of the registered mark or of the trademark registrant’s ownership of this mark. Finally, it may be an admission how the mark is not inherently distinctive.
While these drawbacks obviously warrant a mark owner’s desire to be registered on the primary Register, a supplemental registration has primary advantages of its own. In fact, some entities choose to possess a Online Brand Name Search India that tells consumers what is actually always they are offering (e.g. Pizza Restaurant) as opposed to an inherently distinctive mark (.e.g. Domino’s) demands effort to create consumer recognition. Such marks are not going to warrant principal placement, meant for be supplementally disclosed. After five years on the Supplemental Register, the mark may qualify for the principal Register due going without having acquired distinctiveness. It is worth noting that both allow the owner to use the registered trademark symbol, sue in federal court, and profit by certain international treaties.
Thus, any registration with the USPTO is better than having no trademark registration at any. While ultimately the Principal Register provides the best results and best protection, the Supplemental Register should be considered where an entity prefers what is probably a merely descriptive mark at the outset or did not acquire the requisite distinctiveness to be registered on where lots of deem as favored spot.