Today I'm talking about Trademark Tales of Terror: specifically, how to stop a competitor from committing a trademark chainsaw massacre on your brand identity.

If a patent protects what your invention does (like the Ouija board’s mechanisms I talked about last week), a trademark protects who is selling it. It’s your name, your logo, your slogan, a signature scent or sound, signature packaging, and more, and it's how your customers instantly recognize and trust you. Without it, your brand is vulnerable to copycats and imposters, the ghouls of the business world.

In this episode:

• The Horror of Consumer Confusion (0:38)
• Four Ways Your Brand Gets Haunted (2:29)
• 1. Literal Infringement (The Doppelgänger) (2:37)
  2. Likelihood of Confusion (The Close Call) (3:09)
  3. Brand Dilution (The Slow Rot) (3:46)
  4. The Curse of Genericide (The Mark That Died of Success) (4:29)
• Trademarks Are Nearly Eternal (5:44)

Don't let your brand name be hacked up and stolen. Conduct a thorough trademark clearance search, register your trademarks, be on the lookout for trouble, and be prepared to defend them. That's the only way to ensure your brand lives forever!

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com.

I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe! You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook " on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#intellectualproperty #trademark #trademarktalesofterror #law #horrorlaw #horror #kingpatentlaw #julieking

The scariest part of a patent to would-be infringers isn't the drawing; it's the claims section.

The claims are the numbered sentences at the end of the patent that legally define the precise scope of protection. If it's not in a claim, it's not truly protected! That’s why it’s of the utmost importance to have strong, well-written claims that properly cover everything you want to protect.

The claims in the Ouija board patent, US Patent 446,054, narrowly defined the board and its indicator. If a competitor made a board with a different shape or a different indicator, they may have avoided infringement. Indeed, many did!

The level of detail in patent claims is important. Too broad, and they probably won’t be granted. Too narrow, and it will be harder to prove infringement if someone makes something slightly different.

This is something DIY applicants and online patent mill services often get wrong. The thing is, you won’t know if they’re not good until either years pass and the application is rejected or you have trouble showing something slightly different is infringement.

Don't let your claims be weak! Working with an experienced patent attorney to craft precise, properly scoped claims is the best way to build a protective fortress around your invention.

You don't have to face the darkness alone. To learn more about protecting your creations, your name, your business, and your legacy, you can book a consultation with me at kingpatentlaw.com.

I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I'm an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.

If this episode helped you survive the horror of learning about how to protect and manage your intellectual property and business, please like and subscribe!

You can find all of my other frighteningly good content on the King Patent Law website, at "Know Your Rights: Your IP and Business Law Playbook " on all major podcast platforms, and at @kingpatentlaw on most social media.

The information provided in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship. You should not act on any information presented here without first seeking the counsel of a licensed attorney for your specific legal needs.

#patent #intellectualproperty #kingpatentlaw #julieking #petrifyingpatents #horror #spookyseason #halloween

Don't Believe the Hype

The USPTO is going to put some new applications through an AI search and give applicants “an initial communication identifying a ‘top ten list’ of potential prior art issues in need of attention.”

1. Too soon. I don’t have confidence in an unsupervised AI tool like this. The technology isn’t there yet and will likely give applicants, especially pro se applicants, some misleading and confusing results along with the helpful ones.
2. Wrong stage. The best use of this kind of USPTO AI tool would be to have it available for applicants to use BEFORE filing, since once something is filed, the scope of allowable changes is limited.
3. Doesn’t replace a patentability search. This doesn’t replace having a thorough patentability search done before moving forward with an application, and I’m concerned laypersons will think otherwise.
4. Patent examiners think it’s a problem. From what I’m hearing from patent examiners, it sounds like (a) they think this AI tool isn’t very good yet and (b) that it is the first step in transitioning eventually to largely AI examination. Once again, the AI technology is absolutely not there yet. Can it help? Sure. Can it replace a human examiner? Not even close. (N.b. my master’s degree concentrated in AI, natural language processing, and LLMs.)
5. Pay to play. Of course, there is a fee to pay to participate in the pilot program.
6. Propaganda. Don’t buy that line about the USPTO Director’s “commitment to dramatically improve examination quality.” What he’s doing to examiners behind the scenes is absolutely counterproductive to that goal.

This program could be useful to some applicants, but it’s definitely overpromising and trying to draw attention away from the chaos and poor treatment of examiners happening at the USPTO. It’s almost like the leadership is trying to break it so it can be turned over to a private company to handle. I’m NOT happy about my clients paying the same fees for poorer quality examination, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen thanks to new policies about examiner quotas and limits on their ability to help applicants.