I was just thinking about this. From the linked discussion it seems to be something a non-lawer can do. Does anyone have a pointer to how to best start this process and the approximate cost in EU or in the US?
You can file for an european trademark directly online on the european trademark website.
It costs about 1300€ (as far as I can remember) for 3 categories, 150€ for each category.
It will take you some time however to fill out the forms, and select the proper phrases.
You can always remove clauses from your registration, but never add clauses!
If there is a conflict (and there most certainly is one ;-)), be sure to hire an expert.
You have to use it in the european union for it to be valid.
It might end up being worth it. In 2006 we registered twingly.com, while a startup in the US registered twing.com. Twing and Twingly are similar enough to sue for cease and desist, especially since our businesses areas overlapped very much. Us being a search engine for blogs and them a search engine for discussion fora.
By the time we found out about each other, we had registered Twingly as a trademark in EU and Twing was pending registration in the US. Thus, we had symmetrical leverage on each other and the negotiations for an agreement of global, peaceful co-existance was hassle-free. It was in both our interests to get it in place. None of us had in their minds to attack the other but didn't know to trust the other in the long run. If you end up building the next Google you don't want someone around with the ability to take an easy shot at your business.
To conclude, I think both of our companies were happy we registered our trademarks early on.
Since then however, Twing was deadpooled after their financers pulled the plug. On another note, Twitter and Twine were also started in 2006, without anyone of us being aware of each other until after some time. It was simply a year for startup names starting with Twi, as it seems.
I would. My current company has a great product name. We got the .com domain, but the Twitter name is taken by a person with 1 follower, 1 following, and no tweets.
When I showed Twitter our domain and product and asked if we could have the Twitter handle, I got a form letter response telling me they only hand over names if we prove we have trademark.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 32.0 ms ] threadIt costs about 1300€ (as far as I can remember) for 3 categories, 150€ for each category. It will take you some time however to fill out the forms, and select the proper phrases.
You can always remove clauses from your registration, but never add clauses!
If there is a conflict (and there most certainly is one ;-)), be sure to hire an expert.
You have to use it in the european union for it to be valid.
By the time we found out about each other, we had registered Twingly as a trademark in EU and Twing was pending registration in the US. Thus, we had symmetrical leverage on each other and the negotiations for an agreement of global, peaceful co-existance was hassle-free. It was in both our interests to get it in place. None of us had in their minds to attack the other but didn't know to trust the other in the long run. If you end up building the next Google you don't want someone around with the ability to take an easy shot at your business.
To conclude, I think both of our companies were happy we registered our trademarks early on.
Since then however, Twing was deadpooled after their financers pulled the plug. On another note, Twitter and Twine were also started in 2006, without anyone of us being aware of each other until after some time. It was simply a year for startup names starting with Twi, as it seems.
When I showed Twitter our domain and product and asked if we could have the Twitter handle, I got a form letter response telling me they only hand over names if we prove we have trademark.
For me, that alone would be worth it.