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Interview
Barbara Berschler
The Power of Trademarks and
Copyrights
Barbara Berschler, who has been practicing
law, since 1985, is Of Counsel with Bovarnick and Associates, focusing
on intellectual property issues for the Firm and its clients.
Barbara received her law degree from Temple
University and her masters
in intellectual property law from American University.
Why did you
become a trademark and copyright attorney?
I considered that
intellectual property issues affected most businesses. You have either developed
your own intellectual property or you are using someone else's
intellectual property. Owners
of most small to medium sized businesses do not have ready access to
legal advice concerning copyright and trademarks, two of the main
types of intellectual property.
I returned to law school to focus on those topics so that I
could offer such counsel to my business clients.
Why should
a business owner take steps to protect its intellectual property?
Just as a business owner
wants to protect his tangible business assets such as vehicles,
real estate and equipment, so too, must the intangible assets
that a business acquires be protected because they have definite
value. Understanding exactly
what intellectual property the business owner has and then taking
appropriate steps to protect
that property, for example trademarks, copyrights, and patents, will
then increase the underlying value of the business. Moreover, it is
often the intellectual property of a business that can give it the
competitive edge.
Is it
difficult to get a trademark or copyright?
The answer is
"no." In the case of
a trademark, as long as you are using the mark in the context of your
business, it is a trademark and you can stop others from using
it. And
in the case of copyright, if you create the work to which the
copyright is attached, you own the copyright from the moment of
creation.
Where things get a little
more complicated is when you want to enforce your rights with respect
to infringement by others of your trademark or your copyright in a
work. Therefore, you can
register a trademark with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO). If
you successfully do that, the mark will likely be
recognized in all 50 states.
And for copyright protection, you
must have it registered with the Copyright Office in order to bring a
lawsuit, should that prove necessary.
Aside from
your logo what other things can be trade
marked?
A trademark can be a word,
such as "Apple." It can be a
slogan such as "All the news that is fit to print." It can be a design such as the Nike
"Swoosh." As you can
see, a trademark can take a variety of forms.
What are
the various expenses associated with obtaining a
trademark or a copyright?
In both instances, there are government filing fees involved. In the case of trademarks, the
USPTO charges between $275 and $325 per international class as their
filing fee. That means if you
wish to use the mark to represent a number of goods and services, you
may have to pay a multiple of the filing fee. So if your
business is involved in educational services and you also want to
sell textbooks, you would pay two times the basic fee. Often, I recommend that a business
owner have a professional search performed to find out if anyone is
already using the mark my client wants to
adopt. The fees of such
searches can vary. If you are
having a trademark designed, you have to engage a designer. And of
course, there is the fee an attorney would charge to file the
application with the USPTO and follow-up with any inquiries from that
office.
Registering the copyright
in a work can be less expensive.
The actual filing fee with the Copyright Office is somewhat in
flux now, as they are getting ready to offer filing online, which
will be less than filing with paper.
Currently, the filing fee with a paper registration form is
$45.00 per work. If you expect
to file for multiple copyright registrations, you might want to work
with an attorney first, and then proceed on your own once you have
worked out any kinks.
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