Copyright and trademark are both intellectual property, but they serve entirely different purposes. Copyright protects the works of artists—writing, music, images—from being used or copied without permission. Trademark protects the mark associated with the source of a product or service. They operate under separate bodies of law and require different strategies.

What Trademark Really Protects

Trademark law protects two things: your company’s right to its reputation, and the public’s right to associate a mark with a specific source. When someone sees Nike on a shoe, they expect a certain quality. Nobody else can put that name on a shoe. That connection between mark and source—that’s what trademark law guards.

Common Law vs. Registered Trademarks

You get some trademark protection just by using your mark in commerce—that’s common law trademark. But registered trademarks give you significantly stronger rights. Registration requires an attorney because the process involves searching existing marks, selecting the right classification, and navigating the USPTO’s requirements. It’s an investment, but for any brand you’re serious about building, registration is essential.

Why Registration Matters for Your Business

Without registration, enforcing your trademark is harder, more expensive, and geographically limited. With registration, you gain nationwide priority, the ability to use the federal courts, and stronger remedies against infringers. If your brand is one of your most valuable assets—and for most businesses, it is—relying on common law protection alone is a significant risk.

Video Transcript

Introduction

Your brand is one of your most valuable assets, so why risk losing it? When it comes to protecting your business, two terms often come up Trademarks and Copyrights but do you really understand the difference between the two and more importantly, how they affect your brand? Copyrights are designed to safeguard creative works, but trademarks, while they’re all about protecting the name, logo, or mark, that represents your business, but what does that really mean for you?

Why should you care about whether you have a trademark? The answer might surprise you. Stick with me as we break down the essential differences and explore why trademark protection is far more critical than many realize, and how getting it wrong could leave your business exposed.

Let’s talk about the difference between copyright and trademark. Copyright is designed to protect the works of artists. It is the
work that is being protected and it can’t be used or copied in any way without the artist’s permission.

Trademark Basics

Trademark is the law’s protection of a mark associated with the source of a product or a service.

Public Association and Brand Reputation

Trademark law also then protects the public’s right to associate a product or service with the mark. So, for example, if you go to buy some shoes and they say Nike on them, you can expect a certain degree of quality from that shoe after you buy it. Nobody else is allowed under law to say Nike on the shoe except Nike.

So by remembering that trademarks protect the public’s right to associate a mark with the source of goods or services and trademark protects the company’s right to their reputation
and making that connection between their goods and services by understanding that we understand the purpose of trademark is very different from the purpose of copyright, which is to protect artists and their actual work from being used or copied in a way they didn’t consent to.

Although copyright and trademark are both intellectual properties, their purposes are very different. They operate in very different ways, and they are totally separate as far as the body of laws that govern those areas. They just happen to be two types of intellectual property, but they are very different.

Common Law vs. Registered Trademarks

So we know what trademarks are. Now, What are your ways to protect them? If somebody else is using a similar mark that is causing confusion to your consumers. You probably have a trademark infringement case. Now, if you have registered your trademark, you have much stronger rights than if
you have just relied on the common law trademark because common law trademark doesn’t acquire all of the benefits that trademark registration gives you.

You can do a copyright registration without needing an attorney, but trademark registration generally requires an attorney. And the reason is, there are a few pieces. First, the attorney is going to carefully define what it is you are protecting so that you don’t accidentally get the wrong description, something that is too broad or too narrow or too limited or otherwise problematic under the law.

Classification and Categories

Second, the attorney is going to identify the right categories and select the right classification
so that your trademark gets the broadest protection possible. I have seen many times where individuals use online services, RocketMatter, LegalZoom, et and unfortunately those are just computer
software services.

Risks of Using DIY Services

You are specifically agreeing when you use those that you are not having an attorney represent you. There has been a lot of litigation about that. And the bottom line is those services are only allowed to exist as long as it is a software service using some sort of wizard where you are making the decisions.

And unfortunately, a lot of times, and when it is too late, consumers and business owners have found out they did it wrong. You don’t normally find out right away that it is a problem. You might, but often you find out later when somebody else starts using your mark. And all of a sudden you don’t have the protections you thought you did.

Why You Should Work with a Trademark Attorney

So I highly recommend you utilize a trademark attorney when you want to get a registered trademark for your name or your brand or your logo.

One requirement under trademark law is You can’t allow a person to infringe your trademark and just not
do anything about it. In other words, the law requires that you monitor use of your mark and enforce your trademark rights. If you don’t, the law basically says, “We are not going to give you those rights if you don’t at least enforce them.” And you can’t wait so long that some competitor who is using an infringing name starts building that brand. You need to take action relatively quickly to get them to stop.

Monitoring and Enforcement Steps

Step 1: Monitor

How do you do that? Step number one. Make sure you are monitoring anybody else that is using your name out there. You can do that with Google Alerts, you can pay for a trademark service if you want, a trademark monitoring service, or you can manually go online and do Google searches to see is anybody else using a confusingly similar name or mark as you in your industry.

Step 2: Cease and Desist

Then what do you do? You send them a cease and desist letter, typically. Now, why not just send them a lawsuit? The reason is, often you can just get them to stop if you send them a cease and desist letter. Usually, that is sent by an attorney. It could be sent by you. But often, the recipient of a letter that is not from an attorney may not take it as seriously.

In other words, when a cease and desist letter comes from an attorney, usually the recipient takes it more seriously because they realize, first, the attorney is probably right about the law, second, the person who hired the attorney is serious enough to spend some money to send a legitimate cease and desist letter to them.

Now, if you would like to know more about how to avoid trouble like this, I have a free resource at AaronHall.com/free. I provide information for business owners of small to mid sized
companies on how to avoid common legal problems. That includes a PDF. It includes videos talking about important issues.