TM.Biz announces a Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) portal for trademark lawyers and brand protection providers.

Dubbed “TMCH-in-a-box”, the new portal boosts the productivity of trademark lawyers interacting with the Trademark Clearinghouse by organizing trademarks and supporting documentation and pre-validating all trademarks against online trademark databases.  TMCH-in-a-box will submit the records to the TMCH and track the completion of the applications.

Interacting with the TMCH is not just a one-time event.  The TM.Biz offers a flat-fee subscription service that covers more than just the initial submission and pre-validation of the trademark to the TMCH.  It also includes monitoring of up-coming Sunrise Periods and forwarding of Trademark Claims notices matching the trademark for an entire year.

Any trademark lawyer or registrar helping their clients submit trademarks to the TMCH will benefit from using the TMCH-in-a-box portal.

The features of TMCH-in-a-box include:

• Pre-Validation: Searches online trademark databases to ensure your trademarks are eligible.
• Document Preparation: Makes sure you have all necessary documents
• TMCH Submission: Submits your trademarks and documents to the TMCH
• TMCH Follow-up: Monitors requests for additional documentation
• Sunrise tokens: Manages your Sunrise tokens for you
• Sunrise alerts: Alerts you when new Sunrises are scheduled
• Claims notices: Alerts you when your trademark has generated a claims notice

Pricing Models

There are no setup fees or monthly minimums required to have a TM.Biz account.  Pricing is based on a per trademark basis plus any TMCH fees.   There are several TMCH-in-a-Box pricing models to choose from:

1. No pre-payment required.  Users would utilize TM.Biz as their Trademark Agent to the TMCH and be invoiced for trademarks pre-validated and submitted to the TMCH
2. Pre-payment directly to the TMCH.  Users would create their own TMCH Trademark Agent account with a pre-payment of $15,000 and utilize TM.Biz to pre-validate and manage their TMCH Agent account
3. Pre-Validation only.  Users would use TM.Biz for pre-validation only and would submit trademarks to the TMCH on their own

Law firms and Registrars – Contact sales@TM.Biz for a quote today.

Yesterday, we wrote about California’s new law that makes impersonation of individuals online illegal. And, sure enough a legitimate complaint in the same vein has popped up right away. We at TM.Biz believe it will be the first of many, many complaints.

TechCrunch’s article “Apple Goes After The Parody @CeoSteveJobs Twitter Account” is a great summary of how a parody Twitter account has been asked to modify its account content.

See the article here.

Once again, California is leading the nation in progressive and controversial policies – this one addresses online impersonations.

A New California bill, SB 1411, effective 1/1/11, provides that any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means, as specified, for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Is this essentially trademark protection for individuals? What legislation is coming next?

We were recently mentioned in the blog post titled, Trademarks and Social Media: Five Measures for Brand Health on David Gryce’s IP Blog.

An interesting read for lawyers, commercial enterprises, artists and trademark owners. Check it out here:  http://davidgryce.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/trademarks-and-social-media/

TM.Biz President, Tom Barrett was a Guest Author for ReadWriteWeb. The article ran today and is generating some conversations about trademark protection on social networks.

YourName(R) – Trademark Protection is Coming to Social Networks

By Tom Barrett / November 19, 2010 9:00 AM/ReadWriteWeb

Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild, unregulated world. Facebook and LinkedIn, among other online social networks, are vast private communities that have thrived without oversight from any policy-making body. And new social networks are proliferating like bed bugs in a cheap hotel. As a result, trademark protection on social networks is becoming a serious concern for corporations.

Your personal and corporate reputation and popularity on these networks pivot on an identity known as your username. The role of usernames as brand identifiers is following a similar pattern as domain names but without any of the protections that trademarks owners enjoy.

Click here to continue…

Law.com recently published the following article:

Protect Your Property

Two new sites protect your trademarks and your wallet.

By Robert J. Ambrogi, Law Technology News

This month, we feature two new sites for lawyers. One helps you protect your clients’ trademarks from being lost within the dense and vast environs of hundreds of social networking sites.  Read more…

TM.Biz aims to take the Wild West of Social Media

BOSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL – BY Lisa van der Pool

The world of social media has been described as the Wild West, especially when it comes to trademark and copyright protections.

Since the popularity of websites like Twitter has exploded, celebrities and companies have been impersonated on social networks and the topic of whether or not tweets can be copyrighted has been raised frequently.

Now, a new Boston-based firm called TM.Biz has launched this week as a way to help companies “secure trademarks and brands” on social networking sites.

Mainly the startup will focus on helping companies secure trademarks of usernames, on such sites as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the many other smaller sites that have popped up recently.

Read more: TM.Biz aims to take the Wild West of Social Media – Boston Business Journal

Protecting Brands on Social Networks

Posted by Sheila Shayon on September 16, 2010 04:47 PM

As much as consumers worry about protecting themselves on the virtual Wild West of social media, brands worry too, particularly when it comes to securing trademarks. Brandchannel readers are well aware of the trademark battles faced by brands; just today, we looked at

legal spats involving Starbucks and Lego.

So we were interested to read about TM.Biz, which just launched a proprietary tool for securing trademarks and brands on social media networks, marking a step forward for against cybersquatting.

The business model is simple: accounts and search services are free, but there’s a charge for generating reports and reserving names. For now, TM.Biz is targeting corporations, but a service for smaller businesses is on the drawing board.

“It’s time that trademark best practices incorporates social media in the traditional lifecycle of a trademark,” says Thomas Barrett, President of EnCirca, the company behind TM.Biz. “TM.Biz is the first service of its kind geared towards the unique needs and workflow of the trademark professional.”

TM.Biz offers several tools:

• Availability Search service of usernames on the top 500 Internet social networks. Results can be parsed by client or brand, saved and shared with clients.

• User Name Reserve replaces the tedious, manual process of: reserving usernames; establishing user accounts; and provides a dedicated mailbox to catch spam.

• Status Watch alerts clients via email if their “watched” username is pinged or a new social network of relevance emerges.

• In-Use Reports compile screen shots of existing profiles where trademarks are already in use, and the reports are available to law firms and resellers for creating private-labeled reports for their clients.

Trademark lawyers may apply for a free account. William M. Borchard, Partner, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, comments, “Our clients take steps to protect their trademarks – arguably one of their most important assets.  In social media, TM.Biz provides a great, cost effective, tool tailored to the trademark industry.”

EnCirca, a domain name registrar has been protecting trademarks since 2001. Barrett has 15 years experience in trademark research and protection, and led development of the SAEGIS trademark research platform while a VP at Thomson & Thomson.

“The role of usernames as brand identifiers is following a similar pattern as domain names. However, the protection mechanisms trademarks enjoy with domain names do not exist on social networks; there is no uniform dispute policy to recover violated trademarks; there is no public Whois to determine the username’s owner; and there are no anticybersquatting laws to prevent consumer confusion over the source behind a trademark.”