Seattle Trademark Lawyer

Folks who talk with a lawyer for the first time often wonder, “Is this confidential?”

I know they wonder it, because they often wonder it out loud.

The answer is yes. Even if you haven’t signed anything, or paid your lawyer anything, what you tell your lawyer in that first phone call or during that first meeting is completely confidential.

That means it would be illegal for the lawyer you’re meeting with to disclose anything you say to anyone else without your permission. No one can force your new lawyer to say what you’ve told him or her, either. There’s a statute that prohibits a lawyer from testifying against you. It codifies the attorney-client privilege. If your lawyer violated that trust, he could lose his license. That means he’d lose his livelihood. As you might guess, lawyers take that very seriously.

So why does your lawyer want to know things about your trademark that you think are confidential?

Without knowing what your trademark is, he or she can’t advise you about its enforceability or the risks it might pose through its use. Not to mention its registrability, meaning whether your trademark is likely to be registered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He or she can’t tell you that it is descriptive, scandalous, primarily a surname, or likely to cause confusion with a prior-filed registration — any of which could frustrate your ability to register your mark.

Your lawyer also wants to know about your mark so he can make sure he doesn’t represent someone else who has an interest in your mark. In other words, to make sure he doesn’t have a conflict of interest with another client. This is to make sure he can represent you with only your interests at heart.

In other words, when your lawyer asks you questions about your trademark, or your business, she isn’t being nosy. She just wants to learn the information she’ll need to best advise you.

So confidently tell all, knowing your new lawyer’s job is to give you the best advice he or she can.

It’s always fun to find examples of trademark infringement when traveling. (See the last installments from China here, here, and here.)

It was harder than usual when I was in Spain. Only two examples come to mind: a knockoff of a Starbucks logo and the fairly ubiquitous “Women’Secret” lingerie stores.

Starbucks is in Spain (like everywhere else), but I’m not sure I saw any Victoria’s Secret stores. Not that I was looking.

The prize for most descriptive trademark goes to WEFIX for computer repair services.

If Spain has a trademark, it’s probably ham. Spaniards really love their ham.

I ate it every day — and I’m a vegetarian. (Ok, not much of a vegetarian when I’m overseas.) Gotta love that they keep the hooves on, so there’s no doubt where the meat came from.

Last but not least, this has nothing to do with trademark law, but certainly was memorable. Asian Tex-Mex?

I almost regret not giving it a try. Almost.

Photos by STL.

The New York Times today has a great example of what’s represented by a brand.

A food writer laments that Breyer’s ice cream isn’t all-natural any more — nothing like what he remembered from his youth.

Breyer’s used to market its ice cream as having only a few ingredients — vanilla, sugar, cream. Maybe ice. (I don’t know; I’m not much of a cook.) But nowadays, the ingredients of some of its products read like a chemistry exam.

That disappoints the NYT’s food writer. And it demonstrates what’s expected from a brand: consistency.

This is a lesson all brand owners can learn from. You build loyalty through consistent quality. And both of those components are equally important: consistency and quality.

Ignore either, and your customers will be disappointed.

I heard this story during my first day in Spain.

There’s a worldwide problem with labeling fish.

You think you’re ordering something tasty and sustainable, and that’s what you pay for when the bill comes. But it turns out what you’re served is a lower-quality fish, or one that’s not ecologically sound. Deceived!

Sorta like European consumers who recently picked out hamburger at the grocery store — and paid for hamburger — but ate horse.

It may not be your restaurant’s or grocer’s fault. Someone in the distribution chain decided they could make an extra buck if they upgraded their product by calling it something it’s not. It’s outrageous and fraudulent, but apparently it’s common. And the consumer suffers.

If you can’t trust the label, what’s a purchaser to do?

This shows how important labels are. And — by extension — brands. If you buy from a brand you trust, you figure they’re being straight with you. You’re banking on it. And the magic is, so is the brand owner — because if they burn you as a consumer, you’ll never buy from them again.

You trust the brand owner. Not wanting to abuse your trust — because it will go out of business if it does — the brand owner makes darn sure its suppliers accurately identify what’s being sold. You hold the restaurant you trust responsible. The restaurant holds its fish distributors responsible. The distributors hold the fishermen responsible.

Clearly, this scheme isn’t perfect. There’s no substitute for strong labeling laws. People should go to jail for misbranding. But it’s nice how brands encourage better behavior than might exist otherwise.

Once in a while, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will issue a suspension letter to a trademark owner that has applied for federal registration.

This usually isn’t a good thing. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing, either.

All the PTO does with a suspension letter is preserve the applicants’ respective places in line. Because while the first to use a trademark generally gets better trademark rights than later users, the PTO reviews each application in the order in which they are filed.

So if I apply to register BRAND X in connection with shoes, and you apply to register BRAND X in connection with socks, the PTO might properly issue a suspension letter to you. Its doing so would simply be telling you that it needs to see if my application is going to mature into a registration. If it does, it might very well block yours on grounds of likelihood of confusion. But if I abandon my application, or for some reason it is denied, it need not stand in your way.

This first-first in, first-reviewed scheme suggests two strategies. First, when searching the PTO’s database, you need to pay attention not only to prior registrations that could block your application, but also prior-filed applications.

Second, if you’re going to file, don’t delay. Preserve your place in line by getting your application on file. If you sit on the sidelines, you risk someone getting their application in the pipeline ahead of you. And if their application is registered, it may block yours. So don’t delay!