I want to protect the name Blue Widget. Do I need to file “Blue Widget”, “Blue Widgets”, and “BlueWidget” as three separate marks?
It is not necessary to file all three “Blue Widget”, “Blue Widgets”, and “BlueWidget” separately since there is a strong correlation by a dominant name, Blue Widget. You, of course, can file all three if you want. However, when a trademark search is performed for conflicting names one looks not only for the exact match, but also anything similar in appearance and sound that might create confusion (i.e. cat, cats, kat, etc). Therefore, when you register a singular name, it is very difficult for someone else to register the plural name. For example, if you file and register the wording “Blue Widget” it would be strongly similar to the other two mark names.
