Jewelry business trademark protection

Lyza

I am not an attorney, but the broadest protection you can get for a word mark is in black & white, all uppercase letters, standard PTO format, which means "word in standard characters."  Then, if you change the style, font, color or format but not the words, your mark is still protected.  

For the design mark, a black & white drawing is still the broadest protection you can receive so no matter what colors you use, your design is protected.  If you are using both a word mark separately and a design mark that may also contain a word element, and you want to protect both, you should apply for registration for both.  Because designs often change, however, many companies choose not to register their logos and concentrate on protecting only the word marks.  It is up to you.  

One of the attorneys may have more to add.

JSonnab...

Lyza is essentially correct.  Two clarifications.

First, the uppercase part of her word mark discussion is no longer correct.  Character case no longer matters for a registration.

Second, B&W marks are "broader" as Lyza described; however, they don't afford any protection to your particular color scheme.  In other words, they protect the mark regardless of color, but won't do much where a competitor is mimicking your color scheme in a confusingly similar manner.

- Jeff

carpepe...

Jeff (and other experts) -- I am following this thread and based on your reply to me in a different thread... if I register "BRAND NAME" as a word mark, regardless of the font or combination or alignment of letters, this protects my brand name in commerce -- so that going forward, if another company were to release a product called, "brand name", they would be getting a phone call from my attorney, yes?

My confusion is the importance of the "logo" -- when would a logo (which could change) have more weight than the "brand name" as a word mark?

Why is there a need to register the "logo" if the word mark is sufficient -- especially if the logo is simply a fancy font of the "brand name" words??

Can I also ask about "tag lines" -- are these separate trademarks?

Petco - where the pets go.

yes, "where the pets go" is registered to petco as a word mark.

How important is it to register a company "tag line" ? Is it more important than the company logo?

I am more concerned about a competitor using our brand name, not ripping off my logo...

Am I correct in thinking the word mark (brand name and tag line) should be the first things to register, then as budget permits, then the logo?

Thanks for your contributions here.

CPD