TRADEMARKS: WHEN THEY BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESS—AND WHEN THEY DON’T

Trademarks can ensure that the time and money you invest in building your company’s reputation pay off.

Trademarking words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors by registering them through state or federal government distinguishes your products and services from competitors' and helps consumers recognize your products and services, says Jennifer Miremadi, an associate attorney in the litigation department of the Los Angeles based law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP.

To distinguish your brand from others you should trademark letters like AT&T, numbers like 501 Jeans, symbols like McDonald’s’ golden arches, for example. The more distinct and unique your trademark is the more likely you are to have it approved. Generic items like bread or milk, generic terms like toothpaste, or marks that are too similar to existing trademarks for the same types of goods and services are incapable of functioning as a trademark.

Whether or not you register a trademark the marks you use to distinguish your business are protected to a limited extent under common law. They’re only protected in the region you use them. If you’re taken to court, you must prove you were the first person to use a trademark to secure exclusive rights to its use. Registering a trademark gives you additional protection since it gives you ownership of the mark and prohibits others from using it.

Consider the following pros and cons of registering a trademark:

Pro: Exclusive Use
Since consumers associate your marks—logos, colors, etc.—with your products and services, “it’s important to protect your trademark rights because conflicting marks can cause consumer confusion,” Miremadi says. If your business operates only in one state registering a trademark through your state government protects your marks within state boundaries. If you participate in interstate commerce you must apply for a trademark at a federal level through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This trademark protects your words or symbols across state lines.

Con: Open to Opposition
When you apply for a trademark through the USPTO the office publishes a list of marks approved for publication in the Trademark Gazette every week. Anyone who objects to your trademark can file an opposition. If the opposition is successful you can no longer use that mark. That can be detrimental for businesses since they’ll lose brand recognition.

Pro: Legal Advantages
If another business uses your registered trademark you can file a notice of opposition with the USPTO, oppose the misuse of your mark, seek an injunction (a court order that demands they stop using it), and can have an attorney send a “cease and desist” letter to the offender demanding they stop using your marks.

Con: Risk of Losing Money
While the cost for applying for a state trademark varies from state to state, it costs $275 or $325 per class of goods and services depending on the type of application you need to file each trademark through the USPTO. To be entitled to a trademark you must already use it or have intent to use it. The approval process can last about a year, but could take longer if your marks face opposition. “If the mark isn’t approved that’s a lot of wasted money,” Miremadi says.

BEST SMART PHONE APPLICATIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

In today’s nonstop work world, faster is almost always better. Smart phones, particularly the ubiquitous iPhone and BlackBerry, but also the Droid and Google’s new Nexus One, are making daily tasks more efficient for small business owners. Indeed, new business focused apps seem to pop up daily. With a slew of options out there it’s hard to sift through the fray. Here are NFIB’s picks for best small business apps:

Credit Card Transactions

iPhone: Credit Card Terminal ($.99, plus $25/mo. for an Authorize.Net account and an additional 24 cents per transaction)
Make credit card transactions simple. Enter in the vital info (e.g., card number, date), have the customer sign the touch screen and email a PDF of the receipt. You can even give refunds.

BlackBerry: Paytech PayPocket (Free, but Paytech merchant account required).
You have to sign up for the service to use this free application which accepts electronic checks and credit cards instantly. Send email receipts to customers or see reports on your BlackBerry.

Contacts

iPhone: Business Card Reader ($5.99)
Upload your contacts and trash that stack of business cards you’ve been stuffing into your wallet. Just take a photo of the card with your iPhone and the application which automatically recognizes letters and numbers and loads them into your contacts. Warning: Some complain the app’s not great with non-conventional card layouts.

BlackBerry: Copy2Contact ($9.99/year)
This app doesn’t have character recognition, but it still copies contact information from emails, text messages and search results and enters it into your contact list or appointment book.

Bookkeeping

iPhone: Quicken Online Mobile (Free)
This application integrates with your Quicken Online software to track your accounts and your day-to-day spending. It also helps with budgeting by forecasting future expenses such as rent and bills. Warning: Some gripe that it only updates when you log in to your Quicken Online account.

BlackBerry: QuickBooks Online (Free if you subscribe to QuickBooks Online)
This application offers read only versions of your balance sheet and profit-and-loss reports. In addition, check your account and credit card balances, view customer lists and look up accounts receivable and payable.

Shipment Tracking

iPhone: UPS Mobile (Free)
It’s not just for shipment tracking; UPS On the Go can help you to get a quick rate quote, email and print a shipping label and find the nearest UPS service location.

Blackberry: UPS Mobile (Fzree)
Make shipping your product simple. Save your shipping and payment preferences so making shipping labels is easy.
Plus, UPS Mobile can help you find service locations and estimate shipment costs and delivery times.

Microsoft Office

iPhone: Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite ($9.99)
Create and edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents on the go. Plus, other file types can be viewed and emailed.

BlackBerry: eOffice 4.6 Mobile Office Suite ($29.99)
Don’t let mobility stop you from getting work done. Create, edit, and access your Microsoft Office documents from your BlackBerry. Send a fax and print files using this application.

Time Tracking

iPhone: HoursTracker—Time Sheet ($2.99)
No more paper time sheets! HoursTracker—Time Sheet tracks time spent on a project with a simple “Clock In” and “Clock Out” button. Users apply an hourly rate for each job and hours are exported through email as a summary or in CSV format for easy invoicing.

BlackBerry: ReportAway! ($8.99)
Track time spent on a project and import the report to QuickBooks. This application works offline too so you can always punch in even if you’re out of reach.

5 CHEAP WAYS TO BOOST YOUR PRESENCE ON THE WEB

The key to making your business visible online isn’t just having a website. To ensure that current and potential customers can find and interact with you online, improve your overall presence on the Internet. That means your name has to be out there—big time.

Start with your website: a window into your business and a direct channel for interacting with your customers, says Scott Steinberg, CEO of TechSavvy Global, a Seattle based technology consulting firm that advises small businesses and Fortune 500 companies. But don’t stop there. Expand your reach online to find more potential customers.

Follow these tips to improve your Web presence:

1. Share Content

Allow people to share content from your website. If you write a blog post, for example, add a button to the post so readers can share it through e-mail or on social media sites. If you feature a video on your site, give viewers permission to embed it on their website. Search engines move your website to a higher position in search results if more people provide links to it.

And don’t limit your presence to your own website. Write a guest blog post on the blogs of other companies or experts in your industry, and return the favor by featuring them on your website. Consider swapping online content with company partners making sure your company name is attached to the content. The more places your company name appears, the larger your presence is on the Web. (And the easier it will be for customers to find you.)

2. Optimize Your Website

Use search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, to make your website appear at a higher position in search engine results. The top five results attract the most visitors. To raise your search engine ranking, integrate keywords that relate to the products or services you offer into the text of your site. Find out which words you should use by visiting a site like Google Insights for Search. It will tell you what terms are frequently used in Internet searches.

3. Update Your Website Consistently

Don’t set up a website and neglect it. Update it consistently with content like blogs, videos or client testimonials to give people a reason to return to your site. Make your website the go-to place for information on your industry, products and services. “Maintaining a Web page requires commitment,” Steinberg says.

4. Grow Your Online Community

Give your audience a way to interact with you online. Use a message board, a forum on your website where users post
messages and discuss topics, and create a company profile on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. By interacting with your customers online, especially on websites where they’re already active, your company is more likely to stay on their radar.

5. Get Your Company Name on Other Sites

Customers are more likely to find you through an Internet search if your company name appears on multiple websites. How do you make this happen? Complete a customer testimonial for one of your vendors. Offer up your expertise to journalists and be quoted on news sites. Include your company name when posting on industry related message boards.