The Marks
My Canadian trademark application was approved on 20-February-2008 in accordance with section 37 of the Trademarks Act.
This is really a conditional approval. Basically, the trademark is published and persons have 2 months to challenge it.
As with legal documents, it is worded in an odd way (reorganized by me):
There was also a note in the acceptance letter that I should ignore any third party solicitations regarding the application.
Yesterday, I received an invoice from a European agency located in Hungary requesting me to send them US $1650 in regards to my trademark application (along with my full business name and tax number).
You can read a warning about such organizations here as well as browse specific sample letters.
(My apologies for not divulging the trademark name. It has nothing to do with trying to be coy. It has everything to do with keeping my anonymity / privacy - the application is easily looked up and from there you could get my full name and address.)
37. (1) The Registrar shall refuse an application for the registration of a trade-mark if he is satisfied that
(a) the application does not conform to the requirements of section 30,
(b) the trade-mark is not registrable, or
(c) the applicant is not the person entitled to registration of the trade-mark because it is confusing with another trade-mark for the registration of which an application is pending,
and where the Registrar is not so satisfied, he shall cause the application to be advertised in the manner prescribed. This is really a conditional approval. Basically, the trademark is published and persons have 2 months to challenge it.
As with legal documents, it is worded in an odd way (reorganized by me):
[W]here the Registrar is not ... satisfied [that the application meets the requirements for refusal], he shall cause the application to be advertised.There was also a note in the acceptance letter that I should ignore any third party solicitations regarding the application.
Yesterday, I received an invoice from a European agency located in Hungary requesting me to send them US $1650 in regards to my trademark application (along with my full business name and tax number).
You can read a warning about such organizations here as well as browse specific sample letters.
(My apologies for not divulging the trademark name. It has nothing to do with trying to be coy. It has everything to do with keeping my anonymity / privacy - the application is easily looked up and from there you could get my full name and address.)
Comments
I would so love to hear about your trademark and details, etc. but appreciate your need to remain anonymous. I hope your intent with the trademark goes well. Very exciting!
breal: . It is not that hard to apply (the US application is more confusing) – you just submit what you are trademarking (terms, expression, graphic, etc) and then fill in a free-form description field Getting it right though, is another problem. I finally needed Sofia's help (seeing she is a lawyer) to help me decipher all the legalese and expressing my application in ordinary commercial terms (which is not intuitive). The US application is more restrictive and confusing, requiring you to select from dozens and dozens of categories and check boxes. As well, in Canada, I pay one fee for both goods and services application, in the US there is a separate fee each for goods and services application (my US filing cost me more than double the Canadian one)..