From the course: Avoiding Legal Hot Spots: Five Legal Tips for Social Media Managers

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Types of use that'll get you in trouble

Types of use that'll get you in trouble

From the course: Avoiding Legal Hot Spots: Five Legal Tips for Social Media Managers

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Types of use that'll get you in trouble

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- Types of trademark use that'll get you into trouble. Trademarks can be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. However, even unregistered trademarks are protected under the law in the United States. If a trademark's been used by a business for many, many years and just hasn't been registered, that business can still sue for trademark infringement if another business starts using an identical or confusingly similar trademark. So just because the name you want to use isn't showing up when you search the USPTO, it doesn't mean that it's okay to use. Don't get me wrong, registration has tons of benefits, but a trademark may still be protected even if it's not registered. Your takeaway here is don't use a trademark that's identical or confusingly similar to someone else's trademark. Since trademarks can be pretty much anything, this is a tall order. I use the term "confusingly similar" because that's…

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