Galvis & Co. focuses heavily on brand protection and maintenance, helping clients across the country  identify and register their businesses’ trademarks and protect their confidential information.

We represent small businesses, private franchises, companies, freelancers, and other individuals in connection with trademark, social media, entertainment, copyright, domain name, and corporate intellectual property matters.

We focus on all aspects of domestic and international trademark law, including:

• Name, logo, slogan, or jingle clearance;
• Application preparation and registration;
• Responding to trademark office refusals and challenges;
• Brand maintenance and monitoring; and
• Infringement notification and trademark enforcement.

FAQs about Copyright and Trademark issues and other common DIY mistakes:

Q: “I used an online legal service to register my trademark, but didn’t follow up with it or received a notice stating my application was refused or abandoned. Can I still register my trademark?”

A: It depends. The U.S. trademark office has very strict deadlines from the time you receive a notice to the time you must respond to that notice (you are generally given six (6) months to respond). These notices are usually sent electronically by email so you must be very vigilant of your inbox and make sure you are regularly checking your spam folder for any communications from the trademark office. It is also recommended that you hire an attorney familiar with trademark registrations if you are not familiar or comfortable with this process. Though no attorney can guarantee an approval, hiring a lawyer can be a real time saver and better your chances of a more effective legal response and favorable outcome for your application. If you have received a notice of abandonment of your application, or a “non-final office action”, which means there may be another issue with your application that needs to be resolved before the trademark office can continue processing your application, read the notice and make a note of the date on which the notice was sent to determine when the response would be due (generally six (6) months from the notice’s sent date). In most cases, a written statement addressing the issues with your application will need to be sent to the attorney assigned to your application (also known as the “examining attorney”), so he/she can review your evidence and reconsider your application. For more information on this issue or if you need help filing your response, feel free to send us a message with your questions using our Contact Us page.

Q: “I have been finding other businesses on Instagram, Facebook, and/or YouTube using my company’s logo and my photos on their platforms and websites without my permission. How can I get them to take it down?”

A: Illegal copying and misuse of a person’s or company’s logos, photographs, or other content by someone not authorized to do so by the content’s registered owner, is sadly very commonly seen in our legal practice. This problem is the reason why it is so important to register your content with the proper U.S. authorities, like the U.S. Trademark Office (for brand names, slogans, jingles, and logos) and the U.S. Copyright office (for product photographs, recipes, models, etc.). Once you have made the investment and registered your company’s content (provided you have not copied them from anyone else), you will receive a certificate, which is very much like the deed to a house. Without the deed, how can you prove you are the true owner of the home? The same logic applies to the holder of an intellectual property (“IP”) certificate. A trademark certificate or copyright registration says “you own your content” in the eyes of the law. As the registered owner of your content, you now have the legal power, authority, and protection to use your content publicly and demand that anyone or any person or entity that is illegally using your content on their website or social media platforms, take it down, or else they could be subject to further legal action from you. As a trademark or copyright owner, you can also use your certificates to contact Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or any other social media platforms and directly request that they take down or remove your content from the person’s or entity’s platforms, if that person or entity does not respond to any of your calls or written notices. For more information on this issue or if you need help getting your logo or photos removed from someone else’s pages or platforms, feel free to send us a message with your questions using our Contact Us page.