Trademark Registration Can Benefit Organizations of Every Size

by William W. Strehlow

Trademarks have an important role in nearly every organization.

Your organization’s brand is an essential part of its very existence. The relevance of effective branding is not limited to selling a product or service: even non-profit and community organizations rely on the strength of their brand to achieve their mission. You likely already know that significant value can be tied up in a brand. The world’s largest organizations measure the value of their brands—just the brand, independent of their tangible property and balance sheets—in billions of dollars.[i] Whether your organization is a global household name or just gaining recognition in your neighborhood, there is value to your brand.[ii]

Effective branding is so fundamental that the line between the identity of a company and its brand is often fuzzy—or even invisible—as “company” and “brand” are terms often used interchangeably, especially concerning businesses.[iii] To be sure, there is more to branding than a name and a logo.[iv] Yet, brand names and visual cues like logos are the most visible part of any brand and practically every brand utilizes some combination of words, phrases, symbols, and designs to identify itself.

Likely the most important aspect of a brand’s identity is the trademarks that identify it. Words, phrases, symbols, designs, and combinations thereof used to identify goods or services in the marketplace are trademarks.[v] Using strong trademarks is simultaneously one of the most valuable, straightforward, and cost-effective steps an organization can—and should—take in service of building a successful brand.

Trademark law is fundamentally about reliably identifying the source of goods and services. It supports protecting consumers from imitations and fraud, and helps protect the investment organizations make in service of desirable, high-quality goods and services. A trademark becomes a trademark when it is used to identify the source of goods or services offered in commerce in a particular geographic area.[vi] Legal rights in a trademark allow the mark’s owner to prevent others from using the same or similar trademark to identify related goods or services in a way that is likely to confuse consumers.[vii] Some legal rights in a trademark can apply as soon as a mark is used to identify goods or services offered in commerce,[viii] but a trademark that is registered with the USPTO (the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) enjoys significantly more protection and even some functional benefits, like assistance policing other potentially infringing marks, and preventing goods using infringing marks from entering the country. Eligible trademarks—not all trademarks are registrable with the USPTO[ix]—can be registered through an administrative process that often benefits from the support of an experienced attorney.

Federal trademark registration benefits organizations whether their reach is local or global, and whether their growth is modest or meteoric.

Trademark registration stands to benefit most organizations. Any organization potentially interested in growth, and any organization that would even entertain an offer to be acquired can benefit from registering trademarks with the USPTO. Federal registration can be helpful to growth because it comes with a legal presumption that the registered mark is in use nationwide. Registration is valuable to raising capital and is a useful tool in an acquisition because it constitutes evidence that the organization owns the mark and has a certain degree of seniority—both of which are valuable to prospective purchasers and investors by showing legally protectable and marketable intellectual property.

Regardless of an organization’s size, its plans for growth, or its interest in raising funds or being acquired, there is evidence that supports simply registering a trademark increases the value it provides to its organization. Academic research has shown that registered trademarks can provide a significant boost to an organization’s performance in a way that non-registered trademarks do not, supporting the authors’ observation that registered trademarks provide additional value to their organizations simply by virtue of being registered.[x]

For a run-through of the specific benefits that come with registering trademarks with the USPTO, see THIS POST.

The right attorneys can help you register a strong trademark.

The USPTO does not require applicants to be represented by an attorney; it is possible to register a trademark without one, so long as the registrant is a U.S.-based entity.[xi] However, an attorney with experience advising and representing clients through the registration process can significantly increase the likelihood of a successful application, and—since the USPTO collects a fee for each application—even decrease the overall cost of registration by decreasing the chances of having to restart an unsuccessful application.

An experienced attorney will have advice regarding whether a particular mark is eligible for registration and can help run searches to determine whether there are already similar marks in use that could present obstacles. If an application receives questions or pushback from the USPTO—in legal communications known as “office actions”—an attorney can help you prepare effective responses that give your application the best chance at success.[xii] 

The USPTO itself even recommends that trademark registration applicants consider working with an attorney for a better application experience and the possibility of saving money in the long run.[xiii] Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer has experienced attorneys and paralegals ready to help you through the application process.

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• [i] World Intellectual Property Organization, Global Brand Value Tops USD 14 Trillion in 2024,

https://www.wipo.int/en/web/global-innovation-index/w/blogs/2025/global-brand-value.

[ii] Harvard Business School, Brand Equity Explained: How to Build and Measure Success, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/brand-equity.

[iii] See Harvard Business School, What Is Brand Valuation? Expert Tips & Techniques, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-brand-valuation.

[iv] The core values that inform your goals and market participation, your business’s stories and those of its customers, the associations that people make with your company, and other characteristics make up the overall “brand” of any organization. See Harvard Business School, What Is Brand Identity? Tips & Examples for Shaping Yours, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/brand-identity.

[v] Trademarks have been recognized as legally-protectable intellectual property for at least seven hundred years.

World Intellectual Property Organization, A History of Trademarks: from the Ancient World to the 19th Century, https://www.wipo.int/en/web/podcasts/madrid/transcripts/international_trademark_system_talk_01.

[vi] U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, What is a Trademark?, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/what-trademark.

[vii] Legal rights in a trademark do not mean that the holder of the trademark “owns” a word or phrase, or that others can be prevented from saying a word or phrase, or that the holder is owed money by anyone who says it.

[viii] What is a Trademark?, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/what-trademark.

Whether a particular trademark enjoys legal protection and how much protection it is entitled to under U.S. law depends on several factors. Applying those factors takes some nuance; a process which we cover in more detail in THIS POST. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) has accessible resources covering the basic law and policy of trademarks in the U.S. See https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics.

[ix] Generally speaking, any legally “strong” trademark that is not confusingly similar to a mark already in use for similar goods or services is eligible for registration. For more detail on eligibility, see these USPTO resources: Strong Trademarks, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/strong-trademarks; Possible Grounds for Refusal of a Mark, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/additional-guidance-and-resources/possible-grounds-refusal-mark.

[x] Pranav Desai et al., The Value of Trademarks, Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal, Abstract, Nov. 17, 2022, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4280505; see id. at 22.

For a summary of the article, see Francine McKenna, Chicago Booth Review, What’s a Trademark Worth (June 18, 2024), https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/whats-a-trademark-worth.

[xi] For trademark applicants based outside of the United States, the USPTO requires working through a U.S.-licensed attorney. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Do I need an attorney?, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/do-i-need-attorney. 

[xii] Keep in mind that there is no such thing as guaranteed success in an application to register a mark with the USPTO. Good advice from an experienced attorney will help

[xiii] U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Do I need an attorney?, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/do-i-need-attorney. By contrast, the USPTO generally does not endorse the use of trademark filing companies that aren’t law firms, and warns that some non-law-firm trademark filing websites are not trustworthy. See U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Filing firms, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/protect/filing-firms; U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Recognizing common scams, https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/protect/recognizing-common-scams.