Would like opinions on company name...HELP!

[Roze Ann]

Hey Folks...well I've taken all your terrific advice to heart. I'm having a little trouble producing a clean transparent .gif on PS 7.0 (use to the old way to do it via PS 5.5) Anyway..I did change the background and did a reverse on the logo itself. Just have super basic, basic info for now. Will "jazz it up" over the next week or so and add lots of cool links (this site being top o the list), photos, etc. I checked in to the state level TM registration which is very affordable so that's underway. So much to code, so little time (lol)! Here's the URL:

http://www.fatcatmedia.biz

I asked the fella with ".com" & ".net" if he would be interested in selling but he wants to keep the names even though they are only parked for now. Will add more soooon.

[Nigel Moore]

Looks good, but the image is now about 56k. Have you tried using PS's Save For Web (File > Save For Web)? It allows you to balance quality vs. file size and is a real help in web graphic design.

[Paul Tauger]

Roze, make sure you go over to www.uspto.gov and do a search on registered trademarks. All three selections sound like something that very likely may already have been registered.

[Rob Lohman]

Roze,

I converted your FatCat (tm) picture from JPG to a 16 colo(u)r
GIF file. It is now only 5.5 kb large instead of 55.0 kb. I am
sending it to you by e-mail! There is no quality loss in the
image, so no problems there...

[Bob Deming]

Roze

Went over to

http://www.fatcatmedia.biz/

and checked out that little pussy cat. Looks good.

Hope you get a tm.

[Richard Alvarez]

Lots of "legal" advice being bandied about. Here's mine...

Hire a lawyer.

People on this board are confusing copyright with trademark, trademark with servicemark, US with international, assumed name and dba papers...

It really is worth the time and money to hire a lawyer to do a full search. The trademark office might bump you for "Likelyhood of confusion" even if your name is silmilar to another trademark... it doesn't have to be identical.

[Bob Deming]

You don't need a lawyer for what you are doing.

It is a simple process and the trademark office works very well with you.

Just follow the rules that are on the gov's website and you will be fine.

The last person to contact at this point is a damn attorney.

Put together what you have and send it in with you $35 bucks or whatever it is now.

They will get back to you and if they have found something conflicting they will let you know. They will send you documentation of the conficts.

If they accept then you did it the right way.

FYI

I deal with attorneys much more than the average person. I deal with a patent attorney and criminal attorneys and I have the best in Tucson. That's a fact.

There are about 4 dirty lawyers in Tucson that would just love to see me dead! Why, you ask. Well it doesn't take much to be an attorney. Just graduate and hire a good secretary and goffer.

Attorneys don't know all the laws. They have to look it up in a book. Patent attorneys as well.

A good patent attorney has a goffer in DC that does the search. The attorney doesn't do anything but take the money from you. PERIOD. His secretary fills in the forms and he signs the documents.

So always do your homework before you hire an attorney (for any purpose) be it a trust account, accident, criminal or divorce. The law is there for you to read and after you do if you don't understand you can get it off the internet most of the time.

The internet is a great source of legal info and attorneys hate it because the internet tells the public to much. It takes money away from the pocket.

You can get the entire government system from the internet including items that the gov doesn't want you to know but they have to post it, its the law.

Keep this in mind. If your state, like the state of Arizona allows you to tape record conversations between you and all parties involved, then tape it. In Arizona we don't have to tell the person that we are talking to that we are taping (unless it is on the tele, or we have to have little beeps). This law saved me lots of money when I was dealing with a dirty lawyer. I told the jerk that if he charged me I would play the tape for the judge.

Sometimes your accountant can help you more than a lawyer.

So Again, Save The Attorney For The Last Resort. When You Do You Save Money And Your Time.

[Richard Alvarez]

"You don't need a lawyer for what you are doing"

No, you just need $335 for the initial application, and the ability to fill it out correctly. ANy mistake will cost you $335.

No refunds.

[Roze Ann]

Ok...now that I've caught my breath from LAUGHING hysterically (you guys are great 'free' entertainment) ...here's where it is. All the advice is good. NO information is ever 'bad' unless it's ignored. I realize that some info may be wrong but that's different. Thanks to all the good comments I did a mountain of research and phone calls and as of today have the "service mark" process underway in N. Carolina for the cat logo which includes the words "FAT CAT MEDIA" underneath. The www.uspto.gov site was very helpful. Fat Cat is registered but no Fat Cat Media. As for the site "fatcatmedia.tv" ...I've done a search at "whois" and cannot even find info there on this site although it is clearly up and running. My thinking...that site provides a different type service anyway...and their "look" is totally different. We are not in conflict on services or logo. Just potentially the name and I've done all I can do to register 'first'.

[Roze Ann]

BTW, I am very blessed to actually know not 1 but 2! honest attorneys here in Raleigh. One is a patent atty. who attends our church (he just graduated) and the other is an AWESOME real estate atty. who helped us in this way. We had a crooked home inspector, lying sellers, bad sellers agent, you name it - we had it. Could NOT afford an atty. but this one came very highly recommended. Long story short he agreed to check my work for legal accuracy on our claim to the inspectors E & O insurance. It took over 15 months and he charged us a total of $780. Our damage claim was right at $15,000. The ins. co. 1st offer was $10,000! We settled out of court for almost the entire amount of damages because I have a habit of photographing to death everything. It saved us along with a guardian angel who happened to be an attorney. We pray a LOT and count on the Lord to save our tushies. It works. Best guarantee going...God. So that's why I'm laughing so hard. Y'all are great and very passionate about this stuff. Couldn't have gotten a better answer to prayer.

[Roze Ann]

The fee in N. Carolina to register a trademark or servicemark is $75. The folks there were terrific and even notarized the papers for free (a rarity here). The gal in the office went through ever line of entry with me to make sure I had it correct. Just guessing but I think she's been there since ...well....a looongggg time. It's all worked out terrific! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Peace & Blessings! Roze

[Bob Deming]

Roze,

Now that you have it fixed the only thing anyone can do is take it away from you.

In 1982 I designed a logo for my company; Space Promotions International, Inc. One of my failures!

NASA said it looked to much like one of theirs and they tried to keep me from using it. See, I sent NASA some mail with the logo affixed.

Another guy in Alabama, at the space center (his name was Bugsby or Buzby) said he had already made one and sent it in and it was to close to mine.

Shorter story. I won. I beat NASA and the jerk at the space center.

They both had to pay me damages and my attorney fees. They wanted my simple little black and white logo real bad. I'm going to be using it this summer when my wife opens here doors in Tucson. Tucson doesn't have what she is going to do. No competition is nice.

The basic law is the date of the initial use of the logo or when designed and used or made public. You can mail yourself and not open the envelope but this has been beat in court also.

Good Luck

[Joseph George]

All you need to do is add TM behind your name. You can register a lot later, possibly years; I am not sure. Since someone owns the .com version already, and ever decides to make it a register trademark, you lose. The .biz suffix is another thing to remember and people who will remember your name will be most likely to start inputing .com in their brooser initially. The .com owner will then be able to get free promotion/business from your name. Check with the trademark office if there is not a similar name already registered. Their search is free.

[Paul Tauger]

Okay, time to jump in here and correct some incredibly bad information given by, I assume, well-meaning people.

First, selecting a company name is not a simple decision. Choose the wrong one and you'll find yourself sued for trademark infringement (a lot of my clients first come to me when exactly this happens). Some names are more protectable than others, some names aren't protectable at all. Only a "damn lawyer" who practices trademark law can tell you.

I have a current client who is constantly at odds with competitors because she made the mistake of choosing what was probably the weakest protectable trademark for her products -- great products, bad mark, and lots of litigation and disputes as a result.

Next, state trademark registraton is complete waste of time and money (IMNSOHO). State-granted rights are coextensive with, and cannot exceed, federal common law rights. In other words, you have exactly the same rights in an unregistered trademark under federal law as you would with a state trademark registration. Get a federal registration. It's not that much money to register a federal trademark, and most people can do it themselves without a lawyer's assistance. The USPTO has a website where you can do the registration on line.

Any mark that anyone is considering using as a trademark or service mark should be, at minimum, researched on-line at the USPTO website. You have to make sure that no one else is using the same or similar mark for the same types of services or goods -- otherwise, at best, your registration will be rejected. At worst, you'll find yourselves sued for trademark infringement.

Adding "TM" after a name does virtually nothing. Arguably, it puts people on notice that you are using the name as a trademark and may help prove that the infringement was intentional if you have to sue.

Moving on . . .

Attorneys don't know all the laws. They have to look it up in a book.

Utter nonsense. My IP practice is, primarily, trademark. I don't have to look up anything to answer the kind of questions that are being asked here. You are confused about the nature of the judicial system in the US. The US is a common law jurisdiction, meaning that application of the law is determined by examining prior court decisions which addressed similar situations, i.e. precedent. Application of the law will vary somewhat from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. What attorneys "look up" is how courts have previously addressed similar factual patterns.

A good patent attorney has a goffer in DC that does the search. The attorney doesn't do anything but take the money from you. PERIOD. His secretary fills in the forms and he signs the documents.

More nonsense (and I use that term in its most euphemistic sense). With respect to patent, only patent-bar admitted attorneys can draft applications (it's called "patent prosecution"). I'm not patent-bar admitted, so _I_ don't do patent prosecution. I _do_ ocassionally do patent litigation. I don't have "gofers" who do searches.

As for trademark, you're completely off-base. When a client wants to register a trademark, I usually recommend a firm called Thomson & Thomson, which specializes in trademark searchs (but registered and common law). They produce a report, which _I_ use to review and evaluate availability and likelihood of conflicts. No one but an attorney is competent to make that determination.

The internet is a great source of legal info and attorneys hate it because the internet tells the public to much. It takes money away from the pocket.

The problem with the internet is that it is a great source of information, both erroneous and accurate, misleading and correct. I don't know anyone who "hates" the internet "because it tells the public too much." I certainly do hate it when non-lawyers give incorrect and potentially dangerous advice, which many seem prone to do. I don't what it is about law that convinces so many people that "common sense" is an adequate substitute for a legal education.

[Richard Alvarez]

Well said Paul. I fugured you would jump in at some point.

I showed the thread to my wife, (Also an IP/trademarks attorney) and she just shook her head and shrugged. She also suggested that if someone were intent on doing it themselves, they get the NOLO press books, and read up before filing.