I recently asked a designer to create a logo for a site and he made one I'm very happy with.
On the logo he has put the small tm mark to indicate it's a trademark.

Do I need to register a trademark in order to protect it?

I just associated trademarks with big brands and assumed there were legal steps you have to take to set one up, anyone have any experience with these?

The only reason the designer would but the TM letters on it are as follows:

1) He owns the trademark. He either registered it as a trademark himself or he copied it from another TM holder.

2) He is completely clueless about TM law.


It takes a LONG time to get a TM approved, believe me. If you only commissioned it in the past month or two, I would say it is number 2.

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Getting a trademark is a long process unless you go with one in Benelux where they have a "fast track" option.

Our Irish trademark took about 9 months to process including revisions and queries.

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Isn't it the case that anyone can affix the TM mark to their logo? I thought that this was an indication that you are laying a claim to the name but you don't have to formally register it. I'm not sure how much more protection it really gives you though.

If it has the R (registered) symbol then I think you can only use that once you have registered the trade mark with the Patent's Office.

I think you're confusing copyright and trademark

Anything you write or produce has your copyright automatically, though explicitly stating such isn't a bad idea.

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I happened to be looking at this today. I picked up the following from a legal website Choosing and protecting your brand | OUT-LAW.COM
Establishing and protecting a brand

"The strongest form of protection for a brand is a registered trade mark. Basically, trade marks identify the products or services of traders, to enable consumers to distinguish between the products and services of different traders. You will often see a brand with the letters 'TM' after it; this is to identify a trade mark of the business. There is nothing to stop you putting 'TM' after your business name or brand, to show that you are asserting rights in it as a trade mark. However, the symbol ® denotes a registered trade mark and it is an offence to use this symbol with a trade mark which has not been registered.

If a trade mark is registered, special rules apply which simplify the way in which it can be protected. Unregistered trade marks can also be protected, however, it is much cheaper and easier for a business to enforce its rights in a registered trade mark than in an unregistered trade mark. For this reason, businesses should consider obtaining registered trade marks to protect their brands. Most countries have their own systems for trade mark protection and registration."

I've been looking at whether to trademark my own new .ie site, but while in development I noticed that what had been a dormant .com site with the same name is now in Beta mode and it looks like they're registering the trademark in the US. My site hasn't gone live yet, but do you think alarm bells should be ringing?