Most people know the of the numerous benefits of having a trademark registration on the Principal Register from 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 inside interstate commerce, be registered there and watch numerous presumptions since validity, ownership, and notice. However, the Supplemental Register even offers value, especially as soon as the alternative is your own the question at the beginning.

Before the great things about being supplementally registered is discussed, it is important to understand that that your supplemental registration does not 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 the source of the services or goods to which the objective pertains. Such placement does not give the exclusive right also included with the mark in commerce in connection with its identified goods or services. Equally important, it does not serve as prima facie evidence from the validity of the registered mark or of the Online Trademark Public Search India registrant’s ownership of the mark. Finally, it may be an admission that the mark is not inherently distinctive.

While these drawbacks obviously warrant a mark owner’s hopeful registered on the key Register, a supplemental registration has benefits of its own. In fact, some entities choose to have a brand that tells consumers what it is they are offering (e.g. Pizza Restaurant) as opposed a good inherently distinctive mark (.e.g. Domino’s) that needs effort to create consumer recognition. Such marks are not going to warrant principal placement, although they be supplementally created. After five years on the Supplemental Register, the mark may qualify for the primary Register due there 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 every one of the. While ultimately the Principal Register provides the most benefits and best protection, the Supplemental Register should be considered where an entity prefers what may be a merely descriptive mark at the outset or did not acquire the requisite distinctiveness to be registered on where lots of deem as the preferred spot.