Tradmarking

**RamanSidhu** · 11-18-2009 01:09 PM

Hey,
Im starting a E-Commerce Corporation in California and had some question regarding Trademarking.

1. What is the basic process in regards to Tradmarking a Logo i had created? What forms(and such) would i need? And the overall basic process.

2. Since i am an e-commerce and will have many designs on my website is there a way i can set a full copyright/trademark on my site? in other words can i just have everything i put on my site trademarked/copyrighted all together??

Thank You in Advance! Sorry for any errors or any confusions. I had some more questions regarding trademarks but they wont come to my head, but i will post as soon as they pop up.

**paul2145r** · 11-18-2009 02:28 PM

Have you already registered your corp in California? How come you decided to base it in California? The business taxes and fees are outrageous there, lol! I would have recommended setting it up in Nevada -- even with having to pay for a Registered Agent, you still would have saved a bundle.

As far as trademarking, I would talk to an attorney that specializes in trademarking and trademark infringement cases. Personally, I don't make the extra effort to trademark logos, names, etc as they are covered by a standard copyright.

You should be able to find plenty of free samples of Copyright notices specifically for websites (and possibly eComm specifically). In the footer of your site, put a notice regarding the date when the information was made copyright (2009 or 2010 in your case), and a link to your copyright statement.

Take a look at This Site for some more information. It might be helpful.

**rdc** · 11-21-2009 11:30 PM

The choice to set up the Corporation in California was probably not wrong... If he is based in (and/or does business in) California, he is still subject to CA's business taxes, corporate fees, laws, registration requirements, etc. You cannot "forum shop" for laws and regulations by registering in a different state; that generally only applies to corporate law actions. Registering elsewhere would merely roughly double the incorporation fees.

As for trademark, since you are operating nationally (via the web), you will want a federal trademark rather than a mere state trademark or common law trademark. This consists of doing a trademark eligibility analysis, knockout search, a deep search, registration, and then arguing before the TTAB if your registration is denied at the USPTO. You can try to do this yourself or you can pay an IP attorney to do it. The process can take 3-12 months, generally.

Generally you cannot trademark your entire website's content. Specific indicators of brand and product origin (like your name and logo) MAY be trademarkable. The content of the site, on the other hand, is covered by Copyright law rather than trademark. This should be federally registered on periodic basis as well.

If you'd like further help with either of these, let me know. If you're small business savvy, we can cut your costs by "unbundling" the process, walking you through more substantive legal parts of the process, and then letting you finish some of the most clerical parts yourself.

**RamanSidhu** · 11-23-2009 02:12 PM

Thank You for the help so far. And yes i have done my research on corporation in Nevada and doing business out of California. I pretty much found out what rdc stated and that is what turned me off. I still need some clarification, maybe you guys can help me out.

1. If i did majority of my business out of California which states would be charged by the California tax and which by the Nevada? or all?

2. What left benefits are there to apply of me registering in Nevada?

3. Would my overall tax to my business be charged by California or Nevada?

**rdc** · 11-23-2009 03:38 PM

If you're doing the actual business out of CA, CA taxes will apply. You'll just be paying Nevada for corporate registration (on top of having to pay CA for foreign corp registration).

If you sell to states outside of your headquartered state (like via the internet), then usually sales tax is not charged on interstate sales unless you have a systematic contact/office there, but this is slowly eroding as we've seen in places like NY. But don't worry about that for now. As for state and federal income tax, obviously this applies to all profit/loss you make, regardless of where you're doing business.

**RamanSidhu** · 11-23-2009 04:44 PM

Originally Posted by rdc

If you sell to states outside of your headquartered state (like via the internet), then usually sales tax is not charged on interstate sales unless you have a systematic contact/office there

What you mentioned by this is is only if i registered in Nevada right? In other worlds if i was incorporated in California and had a sale done in Texas via internet would the customer be charged sales tax for Texas or California?

Thank You for all the help sorry if i made things confusing