Do I need to trademark my design?

Please review my page for the guide to how a trademark should be chosen. If you CAN register your trademark AND you are using it in commerce THEN you should try to protect it. However, you should speak with an attorney to determine the answers to these prerequisites. Good luck.

You need to be aware that the cost of obtaining a US trademark registration can start at around seven or eight hundred dollars including USPTO filing fees, attorney's fees and the cost of conducting a trademark search. Being that trademark searches for a logo or design are more costly than for a word mark alone, the cost of registering your particular logo may be $1,000 or more.

Another thing to consider is your intended market for the logo-bearing goods. Do you intend to sell these items in one geographic area or nationwide. If you only intend to sell the goods in Chicago, your common law rights in the mark (obtained by being the first to use the mark in commerce) may be enough to stop others from selling under the same logo in Chicago. If you tend to sell nationwide, or offer the intems over the internet, you should definately seek federal trademark protection. With a US trademark registration, you are presumed to have rights in the mark anywhere in the United States.

Another benefit of obtaining a US trademark registration is that you can register your mark in other countries based on your US registration.

My colleagues are quite right to suggest trademark protection for your logo. I write to caution, however, that a logo on a shirt does not operate as a trademark unless that logo serves a source-identifying function -- i.e. it "brands" the clothing and is not simply a neat looking design on a shirt. Absent serving as a source identifier, NO trademark rights attach to your logo. Trademark registration applications for designs on clothing are rejected as "merely ornamental" quite routinely. Which unnecessarily complicates the branding process and pushes back commercial efforts to sell the clothing.

I suggest that you read what the Trademark Office has to say about the matter at http://tinyurl.com/cdje9p (scroll down to Section 1202.03 "Refusal on Basis of Ornamentation") and then speak with an intellectual property attorney. My initial advice still stands: for $40 or so you can register the copyright in your logo which will provide you with the right to sue anyone who reproduces it or one substantially similar to it -- even on clothes. In the meantime, you can consult with your attorney who will educate you on how to properly brand a clothing line.

Each of the preceding answers is generally accurate, so far as it goes.

But I would add to their comments that someone in your situation should also consider registering the copyright for the graphic. It's inexpensive, with a government filing fee of only $35.00 if you submit it online. See the link below.