In our last blog post about trademark law, we considered whether non-lawyers may act as representatives before the USPTO.  After reading that post, you now understand that a trademark representative must be a licensed attorney or a person working on behalf of himself.  Individuals who are not attorneys are not recognized to practice before the USPTO in trademark matters.  37 C.F.R. §11.14(b). What that post didn’t cover, though, are some of the economic reasons a business or an individual might pursue trademark registration in the first place.

An excellent working paper on the economics of trademarks was co-authored by representatives of the U.S. Census Bureau (Dr. Emin Dinlersoz, Dr. Nathan Goldschlag, and Dr. Nikolas Zolas) and the USPTO (Amanda Myers).  This paper is a bit lengthy, 57 pages, so we’ll highlight a few key points for you here. 

• “[A]verage firm employment and revenue tend to be higher for firms after they file for their first trademark, compared to a control group.” 

• “[F]irms that file in their first year of existence tend to have a very different growth trajectory compared to non-trademark filing firms.”  (To be clear, their growth is greater.)

• “For treated firms, average revenue increases by about 100% five years after trademark filing. The control group exhibits much more modest growth of about 35% over the same horizon. As in the case of employment, these patterns suggest the presence of potentially large benefits to trademark filing firms in terms of revenue.”    

What entrepreneur or business owner would not be interested in increasing employment, revenue, and/or growth?  By filing for trademark registration, a company would not be guaranteeing these results but would be putting itself in the category of successful others.    

Here at Kincaid Business & Entrepreneurial Law, LLC ®, we can provide authorized trademark law services and serve as a resource to other professionals whose clients rely upon them for building their brands. Filing applications for federal trademark or service mark registrations are tasks we do regularly, whether that be for the name of a company, its slogan or tagline, or its logo.  We also have experience with responding to USPTO Office Actions, for those who may have already filed a trademark application and need legal assistance with potentially overcoming a trademark examiner’s objections. Please contact us at 913-735-7707 or schedule with us here if we can be of service to you or your business.

Matthew T. Kincaid