Which Should I Trademark, My Business Logo or Name?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. As a business owner, you are faced with several decisions every day. Should you say yes to that opportunity? Is it time to hire? Can I afford to hire? Is it time to raise my prices? As a trademark attorney, the question that I get often is, should I trademark logo or my name? Welcome to another episode of Own Your Genius where we empower entrepreneurs to use their education and their experience to create dope stuff. I’m your host, Attorney LaConya Murray. 

 What do you think? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Well, in today’s episode, we’re going to answer that proverbial this or that question. But before we dive into today’s episode, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, so you don’t miss any insights on how to own your genius.  

Welcome back to the Own Your Genius podcast where we discuss building businesses, growing brands and what else? Only your genius. I’m your host, Attorney LaConya Murray, owner of Off The Mark IP Solutions. Off the Mark is a boutique intellectual property firm representing innovative entrepreneurs aka geniuses who are looking to protect their brand and grow their business with ongoing legal support and business mentorship. We have a good one for you today, so let’s get started. 

 It’s not an either-or situation when it comes to whether or not you should protect your logo or your brand name, you really should consider protecting all aspects of your brand, right? From the name to the logo to the taglines and what happens is sometimes you have a logo that encompasses all of the aspects. It has your name, it has the graphics, and it has the tagline. You say, well, hey, you know what I can do is just protect this logo and then everything is protected. But that’s not how that works. When it comes to trademark protection, your protection is limited to what you register. If you register a logo that has a brand name, a tagline and an image, you need to be aware that if someone comes close to your brand name and that’s not protected by a federal trademark, then that logo is not going to protect your brand name. It’s not going to protect your tagline outside of how it’s used in that logo.  

And another thing you should consider when you’re protecting your logo is that your protection is limited to again, how you register it. If you make any changes to that logo, you’re going to have to file a new registration for that new version of the logo. I think I looked at Starbucks and they have so many different versions of that lady logo that they have because they’ve made changes because you can’t make any significant changes to the logo and sometimes something significant can be removing something or adding something to that logo. So that’s something else to consider.  

Me personally, I believe if you don’t love your logo, then you shouldn’t invest in trademarking. I’ve been in business for 12 years, and I haven’t registered my logo yet simply because I don’t love it. But I have the honor of registering some really dope logos. If you have a dope logo, you want to make sure you protect it. And sometimes it’s not a question of, should I protect my logo or my name? It’s just a question of priority. If you have a limited budget, the question is, where should I start? What should I protect first? And I would say, hmm, you want to start with the most unique aspect of your brand. 

 For most people, that is your brand name. You know, how would you feel if someone were to use your brand name or something similar? For a lot of people, protecting that brand name is a priority. And then for some people, it’s their tagline. And then for other people, it’s their logo. Again, I’ve seen some really dope logos. And can I just say this for a minute when it comes to logo, that you don’t have to have a logo to have a business. I’ve had so many people come to me who wanted to start a business, who wanted to launch even. It’s like, well, I want to launch, but I don’t have a logo. That’s okay. You don’t have to have a logo to be in business. That is okay. It’s something that you can develop over time if you choose to. After you get to know your audience and have a better understanding of what’s going to connect them to you. And then you see some people over time like the big brands, they’ve had these extravagant logos and then over time they really simplified them. When it comes to logos you want to make sure that you’re creating something that stands the test of time. I will also remind you that when it comes to logos the person that brings that logo to life is the person that owns the logo. If you’re working with a third party you want to make sure that you have a contract that assigns those rights to you or you have a copyright assignment where you can have those rights assigned to you if the service contract doesn’t do that for you. That is that. And we talk about it being a priority because you don’t want to leave any aspect of your brand unprotected. For that reason, many brands have multiple registered trademarks. They will have their brand name. They will have their tagline. They will have the logo. They will also have products outside of their brand name. 

 They might also have other brand names that they’re protecting. If you have your main brand name, so you have, you know, off the mark and then you have a service that has a unique name, you’ll have that service name protected as well. If you’re providing coaching or consulting and you have a unique program name, you can have that trademark as well. Especially if it’s aligned with your overall brand, you want to make sure all that is protected. You can go back to episode 141 when we broke down the slutty vegan brand and you can see how she went through, and she trademarked every aspect of your brand. And she’ll tell you there’s not one aspect of her brand that’s not protected. So, and again, a lot of times it’s not either or, it’s just priority. Which one can we afford to do first? And then over time, as your brand grows and your revenue grows because of that brand recognition and protection, then you will be able to trademark more than one thing at a time. And then keep in mind that that federal registration is just beginning. You want to make sure that you’re monitoring your trademark to make sure that no one else is using that brand without your permission. And then you also want to make sure that if you find someone that is using your brand without your authorization, that you are enforcing your rights. Because if you do not enforce your rights, then you will lose your protection. And it’s as simple as that.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Own Your Genius. Remember that protecting your brand is not an either-or question. Think of that federal trademark registration as a fort, protecting your brand on all sides. You have your brand here in the middle and you have your brand name protected, your logo protected, your tagline, and all the other variations of your brand that need to be protected.  

The more you identify that your brand has, the more protection it’s going to need. And the more registered trademarks that the brand has that are monitored and enforced, the stronger that fort is that’s protecting your brand. Geniuses, what are your takeaways from this week’s episode? If you find it insightful, share it with a fellow entrepreneur and don’t forget to subscribe.  

Let’s take this conversation over to the Markedlegal Community. I want you to share this episode with three people and have them meet you there. But you know what to do before you go. Make sure you hit that subscribe button and rate the podcast. Until next week, I want you to keep building your business, growing your brand, and owning your genius.