Most people comprehend of the numerous benefits of owning a trademark registration within Principal Register for 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 use in interstate commerce, be registered there and savor numerous presumptions while validity, ownership, and notice. However, the Supplemental Register also has value, especially once the alternative is associated with your the question when you’re getting started.

Before the advantages of being supplementally registered is discussed, you’ll want to understand that which a supplemental registration doesn’t provide. Marks occasionally 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 goods or services to which the objective pertains. Such placement does not afford the exclusive right to use the mark in commerce in experience with its identified services or goods. Equally important, it does not serve as prima facie evidence from the validity of the registered mark or of the trademark registrant’s ownership of your mark. Finally, it’s an admission how the mark is not inherently distinctive.

While these drawbacks obviously warrant a mark owner’s hopeful registered on the main Register, a supplemental registration has benefits associated with its own. In fact, some entities choose to possess a brand that tells consumers what is usually they are offering (e.g. Pizza Restaurant) as opposed to an inherently distinctive mark (.e.g. Domino’s) that needs effort to create consumer recognition. Such marks are not going to warrant principal placement, meant for be supplementally created. After five years on the Supplemental Register, the mark may qualify for the key Register due there having acquired distinctiveness. It is worth noting that both allow the owner to use the registered Online Trademark Registration Search India symbol, sue in federal court, and take benefit from certain international agreements.

Thus, any registration with the USPTO is better than having no trademark registration at everything. While ultimately the Principal Register provides the best results and best protection, the Supplemental Register should be considered where an entity prefers what usually a merely descriptive mark at the outset or has failed to acquire the requisite distinctiveness to be registered on where many deem as the preferred spot.