THINKING OF TRADEMARKING YOUR BRAND?

Let’s take a closer look at this concept. 

You don't even need to have a logo to trademark your brand. In fact, your logo is another one of the brand elements that you might consider trademarking in and of itself. There are a few others as well, and some of them are actually more important. For example, the name of your company is the first and foremost thing to trademark. Next, secure the names of your products, the names of your services, taglines, and of course, logos. 

All of these are just brand elements. All of them can be and often should be trademarked. There's absolutely no reason why you should wait until you have a logo to start protecting your brand. There's truly no requirement for you to submit a logo with your trademark application. In fact, names are substantially more important to trademark than logos. 

Logos change all the time, whereas names usually stay the same. Also, logos are usually made around the name–why would you work on a logo without knowing that the name is protected? Make sure that your name is trademarkable and start the process of trademarking that name. Once you know that the name is good to go, that's when you get your logo designed around that name. Only then should you protect the logo as well. 

Of course, you could get a trademark specialist to check that both the name and the logo are available right at the outset of your trademarking adventure. If they're both available, and you know you are committed to the brand, then you have a decision to make! You might like to get them both trademarked. It’s not a necessity, but it might be an eventuality. 

If there is a problem with either of them, then you go back to the drawing board and come up with a new name. This means you would also have to design a new logo. But again, don't wait until you have that perfect logo to start the trademarking process. It's often too late, but never too early to protect your brand. You want to start with the most valuable element of that brand – that's usually the name. Happy trademarking!