Trademark or patent lawyers out there? help

I am not a lawyer but I do know it's easier to copwrite a name before you trademark it. Perhaps investigate that first.

I'm also not a lawyer, but have familiarity with the process and can point you in the right direction.

For any product that you are looking to trademark the name for , first go to the US patents office where you can do an online search to see if the name is already a registered trademark. There are many classes for a trademark and a on line search will quickly help you categorize which group your product belongs to.

In addition there will be a status attached, and that status can be from an initial application to being set in stone. The name itself can reflect on the validity or how strong the trademark becomes enforceable. A genric name will hold much less weight than one that seems to have no relation to the product itself, i.e. the only reason for someone to copy it is because they are copying your name.

Blu-Ray by Sony provides a good example to your question for two reasons, firstly it is now set in stone and was many years ago, even though no product was shipping. So if you have a registered product name, even though not shipping, the name remains valid and you do not need reapply. Secondly, the deliberate mis-spelling of the word Blue is so that there can be no mistake that this name was created by Sony, had they used the word blue, any company that had a product that used a ray of sorts that was blue could argue that they are equally allowed to use the name blue ray as it is a generic description of their product.

Michael

A product name can't be copyrighted.

In general, Michael_S's advice is pretty good. I wouldn't recommend that anyone attempt to trademark something on their own. If something is worth trademarking, it's worth getting the advice of an attorney who specializes in trademark law.