Use of ™ symbol, but perhaps no Trademark?

[TheFifty9Sound]

Hello,

I recently came a fairly generic domain I would like to register - let's use for explanations sake GreenMops.com. First thing I usually do when I come across a domain like this is punch it into the Google search bar and see what comes up. In this case, a product came up by that name but in the singular, GreenMop. So, I visited their website and saw that they had a ™ everywhere next to the product name - GreenMop™.

Usually that would be it for me, but in this particular case, I was curious to see how long they'd owned this trademark. I visited uspto.gov, trademarkia.com and trademark247.com - Nothing. I couldn't find a trademark for this term anywhere, either with the two words joined together or split apart.

There were a couple of other terms on their site with ™ next to it so I searched for those also - same result. I'm guessing they're just using it to warn people off the names or create an air of authority around their products.

Now, to be honest I probably wont register the name because it's probably not worth any future hassles, but essentially I have three questions -

1 - Has anyone else come across a case like this?
2 - What would be the legal implications?
3 - Am I missing something in the trademark search I might not be aware of?

 

[DU]

TM/SM indicates that they intend to let you know about a "common law" right to the mark. It's hard to tell if they have merit. My personal feeling is that you should probably stay away if the name is unique and to a purpose; however, they don't have full protection so there is really no reason to.

Obviously any direct rip-off of their product changes things. I also think if something is worth protecting then you protect it.... and then you get to use a ...

® is a registered trademark that comes with Federal protections

*All assumes US

 

[TheFifty9Sound]

Thanks. Is there a way to search for trademarks owned by a certain company? Kind of like a reverse whois?

 

[DU]

Thanks. Is there a way to search for trademarks owned by a certain company? Kind of like a reverse whois?

TESS lets you search on owner.

 

[TheFifty9Sound]

Yep, can't find anything that belongs to that company. Did some research and learnt a little bit more about this. Apparently you can stick a TM next to just about anything - no paperwork required.

For anyone else interested, this was an informative article - http://magnumip.com.au/branding-trademarks/trademark-protection/use-of-the-tm-symbol/

 

[DU]

Yep, can't find anything that belongs to that company. Did some research and learnt a little bit more about this. Apparently you can stick a TM next to just about anything - no paperwork required.

For anyone else interested, this was an informative article - http://magnumip.com.au/branding-trademarks/trademark-protection/use-of-the-tm-symbol/

Thats an Australian link. The US FAQ would probably have information too:

http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp

 

[DnEbook]

i use trademarkia for ™ searches

 

[alien51]

Some trademarks are specific to certain countries, mainly because the goods or services are only catered to that specific country, eventhough they are using a globally accessible domain name and extension like .com