How to Protect Your Brand with Trademarks

Understanding how trademarks work is so important for protecting your brand. Here's what you need to know:

1.    Choose a Strong Trademark:

Choose a trademark that’s distinct and unique to your area of business. If you want to be able to protect your mark, avoid using generic or descriptive terms that are difficult to protect. The stronger your trademark, the easier it will be to enforce your rights against infringers.

2.    Make Sure You Run a Comprehensive Trademark Search:

Before choosing a brand name, product name, logo, or tagline, hire an attorney to conduct a comprehensive search. That way, you can make sure any marks you want to use aren’t already in use by someone else in a similar field. You’ll need to search more than just the USPTO's trademark database, search engines, and domain names.

3.    Don’t Forget to Register Your Trademark:

Registering your trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides several benefits, including nationwide protection, legal presumption of ownership, and the ability to use the ® symbol. An experienced trademark attorney can help you with the application and registration process.

4.    Use Your Trademark Properly:

It’s important that you consistently use your trademark in connection with your goods or services to establish and maintain your rights. You’ll also need to monitor and enforce others’ usage to prevent the dilution or loss of your trademark rights.

5.    Protecting Your Trademark:

If you want to continue to protect your trademark rights, you’ll need to be vigilant in monitoring your trademark for unauthorized use and infringement. Act quickly if there are any instances of infringement with cease and desist letters, negotiations, or legal action if necessary. A trademark attorney can help you determine the best course of action.

6. Renewing and Maintaining Your Trademark:

You’ll need to regularly renew your trademark to maintain its validity and protection. Keep all renewal deadlines on your calendar and make sure you renew on time to avoid abandonment of your trademark.

Trademark law is complex, so having an experienced attorney who can provide valuable guidance on trademark selection, registration, enforcement, and maintenance is key to making sure your brand’s protected.

Not sure where to start with your trademarks? We’re here to help!

7 Key Contract Terms for Content Creators

Contracts are such important tools that help protect the rights and interests of content creators. When written properly, they provide legal security, help you make sure you’re fairly compensated, and set out clear expectations for everyone involved.

In this blog post, we'll get into the key elements of contracts for content creators and why they're important.

Here are 7 of the most important things to cover in your content creation contracts:

1. Parties Involved.

You’ll need to clearly identify who is involved in the agreement, including the content creator, client, and any third parties.

2. Scope of Work.

In every contract, you need to make sure you clearly define the project's scope, including all deliverables, deadlines, milestones, and any specific requirements or limitations. Don’t forget to specifically spell out what happens if a deadline isn’t met or payment isn’t made.

3. Compensation.

Make sure the payment terms, including rates, payment schedule, invoicing process, any additional expenses or royalties, and what happens in the event of a payment failure, are clearly explained.

4. Intellectual Property Rights.

This is where a lot of contracts go wrong. Make sure your contract is crystal clear as to how intellectual property rights to the content are being handled. Will you keep the rights to the content and license it out, or will you transfer the rights to your client? If you’re licensing the content, be very clear about how long the license is for and what formats your client can use it in. This needs to be clearly explained and understood by all parties.

5. Termination Clause.

Make sure your contract clearly explains the conditions under which either party can terminate the agreement, including notice periods and any consequences of early termination.

6. Confidentiality.

If there’s anything about the project that needs to be kept confidential, make sure you include provisions to protect that confidential information to ensure it remains private and secure.

7. Limitation of Liability and Indemnification Terms.

Don’t forget to define each party's responsibilities regarding legal liabilities, including indemnification clauses to protect you against potential lawsuits or claims.

Properly written contracts are vital tools for content creators to protect their rights, ensure fairness, and establish clear expectations. By understanding these key elements needed and working with an experienced lawyer, you can confidently navigate contract negotiations and protect your creative works.

Are you a content creator who needs help with your contracts? We’re here to help.