Patent Attorney and Founder
They want to trademark their brand for the word “likable” as “unlikable” shoes. Should I also file for misspellings? No, don’t waste your time or money, okay? The reason is we talked a little bit about how trademark registration protects you from similar trademarks that are similar in sight, sound, or meaning. “Likable,” no matter how you spell it, I don’t care if you have an ‘e’ in there, you’re missing an ‘e,’ if you spell it with a ‘c,’ it sounds the same, and the meaning is the same in the mind of the average consumer viewing the brand or hearing about the brand for the first time.
So, that being the case, you don’t need to file multiple trademarks to protect different iterations of that similar name. Right, that’s the beauty of a trademark registration, it’s a pretty broad scope of protection, and it gets even broader the more niche your product or service is. So, in this particular case, “likable shoes,” file it exactly how you use it because that’s the only way you get the registration. You can’t have multiple iterations of a mark and use it in multiple different ways and expect to get registration. And then you’ll be able to enforce it against anyone who comes along with a similar name.