Tips for Trademark Owner – Don’t Tweak Your Trademark.

You have a registered trademark. Some years have passed and you are now thinking about making some changes for advertising purposes. However, have you thought about how those tweaks may impact your rights in the trademark?

You build strength in your mark through use of the mark. If you make changes to your design that are material, you run the risk of losing all of the source-identifying value built up in the design. Further, you run the risk of losing rights in your registration. In particular, once you have registered a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), you should not make any material changes to your trademark because the PTO may determine that the registration no longer represents the actual use of the design and therefore deny continued registration of the mark. Thus, once you register your mark with the PTO, it is preferable to use it in the exact manner in which it is registered to avoid loss of the registration and to avoid loss of the source identifying value of the mark.