Why You Should Trademark Your Brand as an Influencer, Blogger or Entrepreneur!

I’m thrilled to announce that as of May 2019, Girl Chases Dreams® has officially been registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office! While it’s been a long six months, I’m happy to announce that we eased on through with no rejections, denials or expensive revision requests. All thanks to my attorney Randy who made this process super easy. If you’re looking for an attorney to make your process as easy as mine, click here to work with Randy & save $100 off his services.

It was early 2017 when I read a blog post about how a blogger had to surrender her brand after she discovered that another company had trademarked her blog name.

This blogger received an email from the a law firm asking her to give up the reputation and blog she’d spent the past few years building. She thought about fighting it, but after speaking to an attorney, she was told she didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

As a result, she renamed her blog, picked a new domain, and used her old domain to send those familiar with her old brand to her new one.

Sadly, this isn’t the only story. I’d seen this quite a bit on my Facebook Timeline all throughout 2017. Horror stories, one after another. One woman went to trademark her name only to find out someone had already trademarked it even as little as 3 days before they did.

3 days.

Little did I know, 18 months later, it would happen to me.

It’s been two weeks since I’ve changed my brand name, setup my new domain name, and redirected my old name to my new one, and filed the official trademark for Girl Chases Dreams® (which we are happy to say was officially registered May 2019).

In today’s post, I’m sharing with you the big mistake I made by not protecting my brand and the heartbreaking lesson I learned after I discovered that someone had trademarked my name, too.

Why you can’t afford to wait to trademark your blog and brand.

Your domain name isn’t enough.

Like many Influencers and Entrepreneurs out there, I mistakenly assumed that having a domain name was enough. That if I purchased the business license, bought up the domain names, and established myself on every social media platform, that that was more than enough to deter someone from using the name I picked for my blog and this platform.

Maybeeee that will be a barrier for your casual hobbyist, but not for the serious Entrepreneur.

Let me tell you something. Not only is that not enough, but when someone really wants a brand name that bad, they will figure out a workaround. As clever as you think you may be, there are so many various iterations of your brand name. Your social media handle and the domain just really isn’t that big of a deal.

For example, if your name is Luxe Travel Girl and your domain is luxetravelgirl.com, don’t think that someone can’t go to the USPTO, trademark Luxe Travel Gal and easily nab luxetravegal.com. While the spellings are different, the names are so close that it would present obvious confusion and the trademark owner of Luxe Travel Gal can legally ask and enforce you to stop using the brand name Luxe Travel Girl.

Common Law Trademark Provides Only Limited Production

Okay so maybeeeee you had the name Luxe Travel Girl before the other chick decided to create Luxe Travel Gal. Unless you’re a well-known profitable brand in your industry (like internet famous), you really don’t have a leg to stand on. The US Government simply grants you rights in your own home state / territory but the actual trademark owner has priority and authority across the United States. For a local restaurant — not that big of a deal. For digital brands, this means you’re screwed.

And in the case you do want to fight the trademark filing, know that it costs ALOT of money and it’s up to YOU to go through the grueling process of proving the legal trademark owner actually infringed you. This is why those who trademark are legally setting themselves up for success. The person that owns the trademark doesn’t have to prove anything. By doing the proper paperwork, they’re on the offensive. You as the person that doesn’t own the trademark now has to prove that you were the first to own this brand.

If you’re hesitant on spending the $600 or so most trademark attorneys charge to file your trademark, then chances are, the legal battle to get your brand name back is going to be 100x more out of your budget.

Trademarking is essential if you want to build an empire, and not just a blog.

Although it’s rarely talked about, many of the Influencers you see with millions of followers own their trademark. I know because I’ve talked to them personally (and straight up researched others because I’m nosey like that).

If your dream is to be the next ItsMyRayeRaye, Chiara Ferragni, Marie Forleo, or hell — Beyonce, make sure you’re doing business like them. Make sure you are being a smart business woman and protecting your digital equity.

It’s already hard now to stand out online, why make it even more complicated by leaving your brand open to being susceptible to copycat brands. Especially if one day you want to launch your own products and go from Influencer to Mogul. It’s important to protect your future ideas and the different ways you want to monetize even if you haven’t done it yet.

As your audience grows, people will start to associate your brand with your blog, your content, your programs, your products and everything else you do under that name. If you do not protect it, and someone else trademarks your name, you essentially have to give up that association.  You also give up the business built around that name and all of the assets attached to it.

This is where trademarking protects you…

A trademark is essentially a word or symbol that a company uses to represent a group of products that cannot legally be used by another company.

When you’re first launching your brand, it can be kind of weird to think of yourself as a company or Entrepreneur, but the truth is, gone are the days where people blog solely for the purposes of self-fulfillment. Now people are creating brands, collecting checks from collabs and launching businesses.

If you make money off your brand or desire to do so one day, well honey, you are a business.

That’s why I am creating a three part series about protecting your brand. Today is part one. Part two comes out Wednesday that gives you the behind the scenes of me doing the trademark application.

It is seriously my mission to make trademarking less scary and to get you to see how important it is to protect one of your greatest assets: your brand name.

If this post has inspired you to take immediate action to start protecting your brand, your blog and your business, I encourage you to check out Upcounsel and my attorney Randy here.

I found my trademark attorney Randy on Upcounsel and through my link, you can get $100 OFF if you decide to work with him or work with another attorney.

No this post is not sponsored nor was I asked to write this. I just genuinely had an amazing experience with Randy and Upcounsel. Yes I do get $100 towards my legal services for any referral that signs up via my link but I’d be shouting to the roof about Randy and Upcounsel even if a referral linked wasn’t involved.

Whether you choose to or not is up to you. I just figured this deal and experience would be too good to miss out on and is a win-win situation for everyone involved. Click here to get started with your trademark process.