trademarking my domain name

need service recommendations

[koncept]

Hi all,

My website is getting pretty popular and there's been an influx of ppl trying to capitalize on my brand. Several competitors have even bought domains with my brand in it. such as www.brandreviews.com and even brand.org. (I should've registered that second one myself)

Soo, I want to trademark my brand to protect it. Issue is, I want a US trademark but I am in Canada. This means I can't go direct to the uspto. I have used a us lawyer to register my trademarks before but this time I would like to do it on the cheap and use an online service.

Does anyone here have an online us trademark filing service they have used and/or recommend? If you can't put the link or company name here feel free to pvt message me.

Thanks!

[Swanny007]

I am in Canada and attempted to trademark my domain name a few years ago, in Canada. It was disputed and I lost (I'll spare you the details). Regardless, I'm wondering why do you want to register in the U.S. Are you intending to use the US trademark to go after the imposters, and you need the US trademark to do so?

[Webwork]

I cannot imagine that an "online service", i.e., not an IP law firm, would do you any better/greater service than you could do for yourself (assuming you possess at least an IQ>100. Without a "real" attorney review (not robo-signing) the service would be doing little more than filling in standard forms after doing the same cursory online review you can do yourself.

Of course, you get what you pay for or don't pay for in this case, so when you submit by yourself or by using a cheapo service there will be lots of room for "if this doesn't work out we're/I'm not to blame". I've never met an auto-submit-form service that didn't present more disclaimers than claims of competency. (Read the fine print.)

[hyperkik]

Getting a trademark isn't difficult - the forms are online and are pretty self-explanatory, and you can search similar trademarks to see the categories and descriptions they used. But odds are you will nonetheless find the process frustrating. Also you really have to watch out for the various deadlines upon which various forms of confirmation of continued use are required or your trademark will lapse.

I registered a trademark a few years ago and it went basically like this: I used language from an approved trademark to describe the activity covered by the mark, the examiner rejected the mark and proposed revised language. So I copied the examiner's proposed language verbatim, resubmitted the application, and... it was rejected, but new proposed revised language was provided. The second time I used the examiner's own language, she accepted the mark.

A couple of years ago there was some sort of problem with renewal - I attempted renewal through the USPTO website but for some reason the charge didn't go through - so the mark lapsed. When I filed to again register the mark I used the exact same language and categories that had been previously approved and... you guessed it. The new examiner had a problem with the previously approved description.