One of the concerns many people have when they are new in home business is whether or not to trademark their company name or logo. It’s pricey and time consuming. However, it can also provide a benefit to your business.

The benefit is, of course, that your company name or logo has protection nationwide. It also makes it harder for someone else to claim that you are infringing on their trademark. It discourages people from claiming trademarks that are likely to be confused with yours, as you could accuse them of trademark infringement.

Trademark registration costs $335 for each class of goods or services - not cheap, but really not that expensive. It’s more than many other expenses you’ll incur with an online business, though. To do it right, however, you many need a trademark attorney to handle the search to confirm that you can indeed safely trademark your company name or logo, which can rapidly increase the cost.

Logos can be easier to trademark than the words of your company name, simply because in many cases you can’t claim the exclusive use of the words in the company name. The graphical representation of those words within your logo, however, is typically unique enough that you can get a trademark on it. If the words of your company name are unique enough, of course, they can be trademarked.

The biggest expense, if you decide to go through with it, is the search. You can use a service such as Trademark Express if you don’t want to find an attorney on your own. You can do a basic search on your own at the USPTO website, but a professional search is likely to be more thorough.

The decision comes down to how much protection you want for your business name or logo and how much you are willing to pay for that protection. Having a trademark means you must be willing to protect it, or the trademark becomes diluted. Words such as Kleenex are trademarked, but are in such common usage that few realize it. If you’ve taken the time and spent the money for a trademark, this is not a good thing.

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