Trademark question.

[Skinny]

If I want to trademark something and I'm in Canada should I apply to a Canada or US trademark office - or both?

Also because I would have a trademark in one country can I then defend this in another country?

Skinny

 

[-REECE-]

I'm from Canada also and perhaps I can shed some light on this issue.

Here in Manitoba, there's a furniture company called Brick's Fine Furniture. A few years later, along comes a large company called The Brick (www.thebrick.com) who wasn't previously doing business in the province of Manitoba however were doing it other places and had international TMs. Brick's Fine Furniture tried to sue them for trademark infringement however they lossed the case... In the end, The Brick was allowed to continue doing business under that name. That being said...

If your trademark is very important, I certainly would consider making it a TM in both Canada and the U.S. The last thing you want to see happen is what happened in this case...

 

[DNQuest.com]

The same TM can co-exsist in different catagories (Apple Corp, Apple Records). If the name is generic in nature (such as Apple is), there isn't much any of the Apples can do about it (This is an example only, in reality, there is a contracted agreemetn betweent he two about the use of the name). So Brick would be viewd as genereic in nature. Now, if you tried to open a company called Xerox, that is a different story since it is a unique (or made up) name.