My journey to trademarks is a result of accidentally using a name for an event that was a registered trademark, thus accidentally infringing on someone’s trademark. OOPS!! It was an innocent mistake, with the name used for an event in Huntsville to raise money for a non-profit. It never occurred to me to do a trademark search of that name. After receiving the cease-and-desist letter, I became interested in learning about trademarks and how to protect my clients’ assets. The more I learned about trademarks, I learned that estate planning and trademark law can overlap in situations where individuals or business owners seek comprehensive legal strategies to protect and manage their assets, including intellectual property.
Trademark Your Brand
Business owners, entrepreneurs, influencers, and others seek to trademark a name, logo, phrase, or some other mark to ensure they don’t infringe on someone’s else rights but to also protect their own rights. They want to protect their brand. This protection benefits the brand and the rights of the next generation. That is, by securing a trademark registration, you are securing your legacy. Legacy is central to estate planning as well. Estate planning is a way to secure your legacy through designating what happens to your assets and who controls those assets upon your death, incapacity, or incompetency.
Trademark in Business
Having also advised small business owners about creating a business entity and protection of their personal and business assets, brand awareness and protection is important. Knowing whether or not you can use a name, logo, phrase, or other such mark before you start your business can save you thousands of dollars on a website, marketing materials, and other money you spend building your business and brand. If you spend all that money only to then get a cease-and-desist letter because someone else trademarked that thing, you’ve lost all that money and have to start over. This is obviously not what you want. You want to know before you spend thousands and you want to know that you can protect your brand.
Overlap of Estate Planning and Trademarks
Here are seven scenarios where estate planning and trademarks can intersect:
- Business Succession Planning: In estate planning and business development, my clients often create plans to transfer ownership and control of their businesses upon death or incapacity. Small business owners need a succession plan! If the business has valuable trademarks, the estate plan may include strategies to ensure the seamless transfer of these intellectual property assets to heirs or successors.
- Intellectual Property as an Asset: Trademarks are valuable assets, and their protection is crucial for maintaining the worth of a business. As an estate planning attorney, I work with business owners to ensure that intellectual property, including trademarks, is properly identified, valued, and included in the overall estate plan. This can include running a trademark search and registering that mark. This is important, because as an estate planning and trademarks lawyer, I want to help you protect your brand, your assets, and your legacy.
- Family Businesses: Many family businesses, small businesses, and other entrepreneurs have both tangible and intangible assets, including trademarks. An estate planning lawyer might assist in structuring a plan that considers the goals for the business, which could involve addressing trademark issues such as licensing, transfer of ownership, or succession planning.
- Asset Protection: Estate planning involves protecting assets from potential creditors and legal challenges. Trademarks can be a significant part of a business’s value, and strategies may be implemented to shield these assets from potential risks. Again, this preserves the legacy of your brand and your legacy to your family.
- Legacy and Brand Preservation: For business owners who have built a brand with a strong trademark, preserving that brand as part of their legacy may be important. Estate planning attorneys may work with clients to develop strategies that ensure the ongoing protection and use of the trademark according to the owner’s wishes, whether that be transfer to the next owner of the business or transfer to family upon death.
- Trusts and Intellectual Property: Asset protection planning is an important consideration when deciding whether to trademark something. Trusts are a recognized tool of estate planning attorneys to help clients, whether or not wealthy, to protect those assets and provide a smoother transfer of ownership. Intellectual property, including trademarks, can be placed in trusts as part of an estate plan.
- Joint Estate and Intellectual Property Planning: In situations where individuals or families own both personal assets and a small business, I, as an estate planning lawyer, can create integrated plans that address getting a registered trademark and the transfer and management of both personal and business-related intellectual property.
Take Action to Trademark
These are just a few ways estate planning and trademarks compliment one another and why it makes sense for an estate planning attorney to also be your trademark attorney. Do you want to ensure you don’t infringe on someone else’s rights and to ensure your rights to your own logo, name, and such are protected? You need to take action for a trademark.
If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, influencer, or need an attorney for your trademark search and application, contact Huntsville Estate Planning Lawyer, LLC at 256-361-1221 or go to my website, huntsvilleestateplanninglawyers.com and schedule a consultation directly from the website.
