Getting a Trademark

In the beginning of my Amazon journey, after successfully listing my products onto my store, I thought it would be good to experiment with digital advertising. So I went straight to the built-in Amazon advertising manager but it did not allow me to advertise the stickers. After doing some research, I discovered I needed to have a trademarked brand in order to advertise these products. At first, I did not want to believe this because it is a big barrier to entry. However, after some back and forth with the customer service, it was clear that it was a necessity to get the trademark.

I wondered where to even begin. After some Internet research, I learned that you apply for a trademark on USPTO.com, the US website of the Patent and Trademark Office. Good news was that minors, applicants under 18, were allowed to apply for a trademark. After spending a lot of time trying to sign up and getting verified on the uspto site I learned that only people over 18 can get verified. The only way to apply was to get one of my parents to be on the trademark, which I did not want to do, but the uspto customer support assured me that I would be able to take them off the owner list once I turn 18 as long as my name is on the trademark.

After getting the accounts set up, applying for a trademark was easier than I thought. USPTO has really good help pages explaining the process step by step. There is also a site around trademark basics that I found helpful.

I was going to trademark KayKay Tech, which is my brand. So, the first step was to do a trademark search to make sure that it is not already taken. After that checked out, I started the online application form. One thing I did not know is that a trademark is always tied to a product, you cannot blanket trademark for all products. In my case, I started with stickers, including any wall, laptop etc sticker, a broad category. So I had to search and select all those categories for my application. Then I submitted the payment and the application to start the review process. My trademark was assigned USPTO 97578024. Once the process finishes, I am looking forward to using this to advertise my Amazon store.