Protecting Your Work: Trademarks and Copyrights for Authors

While patents, trademarks and copyrights are 3 foundational types of intellectual property, they are completely different and separate animals. Much like car insurance, house insurance, and liability insurance, they all protect different things for different reasons.

3 Types of Intellectual Property

Patents

Patent law protects inventions (whether newly developed drugs, chemicals, or bicycle seats). Us authors can put that aside.

Copyrights 

Copyright law protects works of art (like your books!) by prohibiting anyone else from printing, copying, or adapting your stories (and largely, the unique and creative characters and plots within them).

Get a copyright to protect your books! That will last for 70 years after your death. 

Trademarks. 

Trademark law protects your branding. That would include your author name, the name and logo of your book series, or your publishing company name and/or logo.

Once you obtain a federal trademark registration on these source-indicators, you’re given many benefits. You can stop anyone else from using that name, logo, author name (yes even if it is that other person’s legal name!) or branding – or anything confusingly similar to it – for the same (or closely related) goods or services. Trademarks last forever. (So long as you file the renewals and continue to use it.) 

Get a trademark over your book series name (and logo, which is a separate trademark application), if you are investing (financially and emotionally) in it.  

You may also wish to apply for a trademark over your author name, or publishing company name and logo, if you’re investing in that and wish to build consumer recognition therein. 

NOTE that you cannot get a trademark on the title of a single book. 

How to apply for trademarks and copyrights:

Copyrights

Apply for a copyright online at copyright.gov. You do not need an attorney, but do your research first. It is very inexpensive to apply; perhaps around $70. 

Trademarks

Apply for a trademark with the online form at USPTO.gov. You are not required to have an attorney, but it is recommended to have an attorney (who specializes in trademark law specifically!) to handle your application. (Do not hire an attorney who does not specialize in trademarks; this is no better than doing this yourself.) A trademark attorney will charge somewhere between $650-$1,300 to handle your application. This does not include the application fee(s), discussed down below. This process is fairly complicated and there many pitfalls to avoid. 

However, if one does a lot of research on their own, they can do it themselves. Here are some tips:

• The USPTO.gov website has some great videos and resources for you.

• I recommended feeling your way around by starting to fill out an actual trademark application, to see what questions it asks, and towards the end, just close the window (before paying or anything.) 

• Here's a golden secret not many know: If your trademark application gets refused, the refusal email will contain a letter, and at the end of that letter is a name and phone number of the Examining Attorney handling your application. Call them, and the real person will answer the phone and help you. Often you can resolve the issue with a two minute phone call.

To summarize, before submitting a trademark application, you either have to hire a trademark attorney, or really do your research. 

The application fee(s) costs around $350-$500, depending on a number of factors. (If you do it right, and are simply protecting your trademark for printed books only, it should be $350.)

You’ll have to provide information such as the trademark owner’s full legal name and address, the trademark you’re applying for, the list of goods and/or services you are providing under the mark, a “filing basis”, and (if applicable) proof that you are using the trademark as claimed. (Yes, those last 3 items get complicated. Hence, the research or attorney you’ll need.)

An application can take just 20-40 minutes to submit. You’ll hear a reply in 4-6 months or so. Even if it is granted at that point, it still takes a few more months for the registration to be granted (assuming it gets through all the subsequent checkpoints). However, if and when your get the registration, your trademark rights begin retroactively from the date you first submitted the application. 

The Bottom Line

If you think protecting your intellectual property is expensive, it’s far cheaper than not doing so! Nothing is worse than getting a notice in the mail that you must cease printing your books or using the book series name you’ve poured your entire heart and soul (and bank account) into for years – when for just a few hundred dollars you could have protected yourself.

The time and expense of doing this now pales in comparison to the time and expense of NOT doing it. 

I’d be delighted to answer all your questions with a 1 hour phone call and set you on the right path: Visit ItsGotToBeMagic.com and check out the ‘Author Consult’ Reward.

Meet J.R. Becker

J. R. holds a B.A. in Philosophy and a Juris Doctorate from Emory University School of Law.  When he’s not practicing entertainment law, playing drums, or enjoying the great outdoors, Joseph enjoys all the science and philosophy books and podcasts he can, pondering the bigger questions and dreaming up ideas for future children stories.

After publishing his first (philosophical, dystopian) novel The Spider & the Ant, and later becoming a father, Joseph was inspired to found the Annabelle & Aiden series to foster curiosity and scientific awareness in the next generation.

Joseph lives in New Jersey with his wife Leah, and two children, Annabelle & Aiden.

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