[casual_games] Trademarks - Registered?

[James Gwertzman]

I thought I heard somewhere that our US treaties with other countries
may require the (R) for your trademarks to be protected. So if you visit
another country, and see someone ripping off your name, it may need to
be registered here before you get protection there. We've registered all
of our trademarks here at PopCap, not only in the US but in several
other countries to be safe.

---------------------------
James Gwertzman
Director of Business Development
PopCap Games, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Brian Robbins
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 2:48 PM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Trademarks - Registered?

A couple years ago we had a panel of IP lawyers give a talk at the
Colorado
IGDA chapter meeting.

The general consensus on the panel was that you get almost the same
amount
of legal protection by using TM as you do with an actual Registered
Trademark (R). The only major difference they pointed out was that if
you do
get into a trademark suit you can't do anything about it until you
actually
register it. However, your Trademark protection still dates back to your
first documented use of TM.

If this is for your company name then my recommendation would be to do
the
search to be safe (whether on your own with the USPTO search, or paying
the
lawyers), but I'd probably hold off on actually registering it (unless
of
course you have money to burn :).


--
Brian Robbins
Director, Online Gaming
http://www.fuelgames.com/blog/

  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org 
> [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Phil Steinmeyer
> Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 5:00 PM
> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
> Subject: [casual_games] Trademarks - Registered?
> 
> I did my own trademark searches on my company and game name 
> at this site:
> http://www.nameprotect.com/cgi-bin/FREESearch/search.cgi
> 
> I didn't see any conflicts.
> 
> That said, I'm wondering whether I should
> 
> 1) Have my law firm do full trademark searches (at ~$1K/each)
> 2) Do full trademark registrations (not sure on cost, but 
> probably $1.5K each if done through their firm)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> 
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