Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lcannon]

I want to trademark my name and I am an artist.  How do I describe my art in a way to be able to trademark my name associated with it?

[Kaitlin]

I want to trademark my name and I am an artist.  How do I describe my art in a way to be able to trademark my name associated with it?

The more fundamental question is whether your name can even stand as a trademark.  (And I assume that by saying you want to "trademark" your name, you mean you wish to register it as a trademark with the PTO.  In the US, trademarks actually are created by use, not by registration.) 

Personal names are generally considered to be "descriptive" under trademark law, as such the only way they can be considered to be trademarks is when they've been used long enough to establish "secondary meaning", i.e. for the public to identify that name as an indicator that the products associated with it come from one common source.  And that's usually in the context of a business name used as a trademark.  When it comes to the case of an artist, I imagine not only the PTO, but the courts as well, would take the same view as that expressed in the excerpt from the PTO's 2007 TMEP below--namely, that a normal name will likely be understood by the public to just be the name of the artist, and have no trademark function, while an unusual or unique pseudonym may function as a trademark.

TEMP sec. 1202.09 Names of Artists and Authors

Generally, subject matter used solely as an author's name, even on multiple books, does not function as a trademark. See In re Chicago Reader Inc., 12 USPQ2d 1079 (TTAB 1989) (CECIL ADAMS, as used on the specimens, merely identifies the author and is not used as a trademark). Cf. In re Wood, 217 USPQ 1345 (TTAB 1983) (artist's pseudonym YSABELLA, affixed to an original work of art, functioned as a trademark).

From http://www.bitlaw.com/source/tmep/1202_09.html

As for how to "describe the art", do you mean how to determine what class to file under, or how to describe your "product" (or service?) in terms of whatever your medium is?

[JSonnabend]

Kaitlin may have overstated the "rule" a bit.  Surnames can be problematic, but combinations of first and last names may be less so.  Other than that, her guidance is good.

On the "description" part, your ID would be along the lines of "art prints", etc. and/or "art design for others."  Of course, I am assuming your medium.  If you are a sculptor or photographer, for example, you would adjust your ID accordingly.

- Jeff

[NJ Patent1]

Katlin, JSonnabend:  A follow-up question if I may.  The artist Joan Miro usually signed his work with only his surname "Miro".  But he did so in a consistent, stylized way.  Might the stylized version of his surname be registerable as a stylized mark?

[JSonnabend]

Yes, it might be, with or without stylization.

- Jeff