FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Misspellings and Other Changes to Get Around Someone Else's Trademark

Are misspellings or other changes a way to get around another person’s trademark? The answer may surprise you.

It's not uncommon for us to do the search for our client. After we conduct the search, we identify a trademark that is an obstacle for our client's registration of theirs because they're too close. 

Oftentimes, there's an overlap on goods and services. The marks are similar, and often we get this proposition, "Well, how about if we just make a few little changes. What if we add "the", or we add some misspelling, or we add a dash in the middle," something like that. Something very minor and, "Would that be sufficient to overcome the objections from the Trademark's Office?"

As a trademark services company, we usually advise against something like that for several reasons. 

First of all, those small changes may not be sufficient to overcome the objections. The stronger the other trademark is, the less likely you are to be successful in overcoming the Trademarks Office's objections. 

This can lead to increased trademark costs and make trademarking your brand more difficult. The example that I always use just to illustrate how this works, is Microsoft.

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Disclaimer: Please note that this post and this video are not and are not intended as legal advice. Your situation may be different from the facts assumed in this post or video. Your reading this post or watching this video does not create a lawyer-client relationship between you and Trademark Factory International Inc., and you should not rely on this post or this video as the only source of information to make important decisions about your intellectual property.