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Intellectual Property Research: Trademark Statutes

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO)

  • General Information Concerning Patents
  • Multi-Step U.S. Patent Search Strategy
  • Official Gazette for Patents
  • Patent Basics
    • A U.S. patent gives an inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent provides additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety). What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on a patent, the inventor may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
  • Patent Center
    • Provides access to the dockets for issued or published patent applications. Use this database to view an application's prosecution history and continuity information.
  • Patent Public Search
    • New web-based patent search application that will replace internal legacy search tools
  • State Trademark Information Links
    • USPTO page with links to state trademark web sites
  • Trademark Basics
    • A trademark is generally a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. A service mark is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than goods.
  • USPTO Website

STATUTES

U.S. federal trademark law is found in chapter 22 of title 15 of the U.S. Code. The United States Code can be found online at the website of its publisher, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives, or at govinfo.

Annotated versions of the United States Code are published by West (United States Code Annotated or U.S.C.A.) and Lexis (United States Code Service or U.S.C.S.) and are available online in Westlaw Edge and Lexis Plus, respectively. HeinOnline offers full historic coverage of the U.S. Code, which can be useful when faced with an issue based on a previous trademark law.

Trademarks can also be protected by state law. The codes of individual states should be consulted for how those jurisdictions manage their trademark issues.

  • 15 U.S.C. Chapter 22
    • Browse Title 15, Chapter 22 in the free, unannotated version of the U.S. Code maintained by the Office of Law Revision Counsel.

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