
Ask HN: Should we file a trademark? - secretagent
We&#x27;re CodePen.  We&#x27;ve been operating for 3+ years.  A google search for our name yields 518k legit results.  We&#x27;ve always operated under the assumption that we&#x27;re the de-facto owner of our name.  But, recently, someone used our icon which was included in a free icon set as the icon for their magazine.<p>We&#x27;re looking into paying to trademark our company, but it seems kinda pricy and also seems to have little value.  In fact, [LegalZoom] [1] says &quot;you are not required to register a trademark to achieve some level of protection&quot;.<p>Can anyone here explain to me what we&#x27;ll really get from going through this $900 process?<p>[1]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.legalzoom.com&#x2F;knowledge&#x2F;trademark&#x2F;faq&#x2F;benefits-registered-trademarks
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dalke
LegalZoom also talks about unregistered trademarks
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark))
and the comparison with registered trademarks at
[http://info.legalzoom.com/registered-vs-unregistered-
tradema...](http://info.legalzoom.com/registered-vs-unregistered-
trademark-21089.html) and [http://info.legalzoom.com/report-use-unregistered-
trademark-...](http://info.legalzoom.com/report-use-unregistered-
trademark-22578.html) .

You first send a cease and desist letter.

> If the infringing party does not comply with your cease and desist letter,
> you may protect your unregistered mark by filing a lawsuit for trademark
> infringement in your state court. Your lawsuit will need to notify the court
> how long you've been using the mark and how the other party is infringing on
> your rights. Because an unregistered trademark is only granted protection
> within a limited geographic area, any infringing use outside of this
> geographic area will not be enforceable. A third party who files for federal
> registration of your unregistered mark, even after you've been using it, may
> be granted the right to use that mark in all geographic areas other than the
> limited area where your common law rights exist.

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sjs382
Yeah, getting your logo used in unexpected places is one of the major
downsides of having your logo included in icon packs.

Before I changed it, one codebase I had inherited used the Pagelines (had
never heard of this product before seeing it in the FontAwesome logos section)
logo [1] as an icon on a webpage.

[1]
[http://fontawesome.io/icon/pagelines/](http://fontawesome.io/icon/pagelines/)

