Trade mark Report

The purpose of Trademarks are to prevent confusion as to source of a product by consumers, and to prevent one business from trading off the goodwill of another business.

Trademarks do not have to be registered. Registration offers additional protection against infringement.

We may identify our words or logos intended as trademarks with a TM symbol.

I searched the USPTO database for "Folk Project". The only return was "The Folk Today Project", a New Zealand company producing Audio and Video recordings. They filed for a US TM on March 15 2015, and are a new company. (It is interesting that we first discussed TM at the April board meeting.) Their application is under business class 09, software. (We would likely be under class 41, Education and Entertainment Services).

There are implications of this existing application I am not qualified to examine in detail.

• The products and marketplaces are different (but not totally unrelated), so there may or may not be infringement.

• We could object to their registration being granted (it is in a many months process). We have been in business for a long time, theirs is brand new.

• We could also contest after registration.

• We may ignore and do nothing, or take some action.

• An attorney's advice would be advisable.

My opinions:

1. We should begin using TM immediately, to identify our marks and logos.

2. Whether to register is a more complex question, there are fees involved (roughly $300) and the other registration may complicate things.

3. We should at least get initial legal advice as to implications of other company's registration.

4. I don't think we are overly concerned about their activities being confused with ours. Our bigger concern would be if they think our activities (under our name) are infringing on their mark, and take action. Legal advice would be prudent.

Bob