What is trademark law and why is it important for businesses? I’m a trademark attorney here to answer any of your questions. Ask me anything!

My parents have owned their own business for the last 15 years in PA. We’ve filed within the last few years (I’m personally unsure of when) but have not heard anything back about trademarking the name of our business, something we should’ve done sooner but didn’t.

We received word of a company opening in January 2020 with a similar name to ours (they use the first two words in our company name, and not the 3rd). We found out from a customer of ours that relocated to GA, thinking that we opened a store there and was disappointed in product. This person’s website address is the same as ours, but with a hyphen.

Do we have grounds to send a C&D even if we haven’t received approval for our trademark yet? We believe that this person has to know that we exist due to the website address situation.

/r/IAmA Thread