Did You Use a Lawyer to Set up Your Business

[deborah]

I talked with a lawyer today and got some prices. She wasn't all that good a salesperson, because I don't see what she offers that I can't do on my own.

What I need is:

1) trademark search;
2) register for a trademark;
3) and then set up my business as a corporation.

It looks like I can do a trademark search via a company on the web (Ros might suggest some somewhere), that I can register through the USPTO myself without having to pay an attorney's overhead, and set up the business myself. I've set up a nonprofit on my own before and many of the steps appear to be the same; in the meantime, I could work as a sole prop.

Am I missing anything? Is there a really good reason to use a lawyer besides saving me the hassle of having to do the above myself?

[larissa]

[deborah]

Oh, I'm not looking for Rosalind to recommend a company. She did in her book, and I simply could not recall the name when I wrote my previous post. I have a search company in my files if I want to use one.

Actually, my main goal is not about being named personally in a lawsuit. I like the LLC format and include that in my term 'corporation' although I didn't exactly specify it.

The USPTO does have a lot of search tools, and I've used them all and have not found the term I wanted already listed (trademarked or registered). I suppose I could go ahead and apply without a more throrough search, but it seems a more thorough search (in all 50 states as well as federal, etc) would assure me that no one will come up later and say they had the name...although, I suppose that is what the USPTO would do, isn't it?

It's probably less expensive to just pay the USPTO and forego the search. The USPTO will reject it if they find someone using the same mark.

There must be a reason people pay for trademark searches before applying through the USPTO. I'll have to figure out why next. I have a friend who is a patent attorney, so maybe I can ask him this one small question.