[Repost] Trademark

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Trademark
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Date sent: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 19:10:30 -0600

Oops big snip

Diane, you can contact consumer and corporate affairs for
trademark and stamping info.

If you quality stamp you must also have a trademark stamp on a
piece. It is not legal to quality stamp a piece without it. Only a
very few solder joins (3 in a sterling object) are allowable
because it lowers the alloy too much. Some people get around this
by adding a fine silver chunk to a silver object to counterbalance
this. In gold you can use plumb solders, that is solders which are
the same carat (gold percentage) as the gold alloy itself. If you
have a gold piece with a sterling rivet you may stamp the gold
part gold.(and the sterling rivet sterling) If the gold piece has
a small piece of sterling soldered to it you may only stamp the
piece sterling, ie the lower quality part. One might make a case
(I would not want to try) that one stamps in proportion to the
proportions of the volumes present (like cereal boxes), so 14k,
s/s925 etc.

One of a kind work is seldom tested in real life (they smelt it
and test the melted and destroyed article) but production work is
done regularly. the Canadians are fairly reasonable however and
after notifying you of your error you have in general 7 days to
fix it (get it out of the store, otherwise fix the problem)

You must register a trademark, in Canada this is fairly easy,
costs about 150 dollars and while the process is occuring you have
the legal right to stamp items. If your trademark is denied then
you must stop using it. You can however have access to the
trademark database free at federal government offices (this used
to be unavailable without a lawyer and $500 fees to them)

There are now international trademarks available (can someone on
the list comment on this?), otherwise one might technically have
to trademark in every country you sold in.

You can sell anything if it is not quality stamped (customers
don’t like it) and you don’t claim in writing that it is a certain
quality, ie if your card in the shop says sterling you had better
have a trademark but if you only say silver you are safe (if
potentially sleazy).

In the states it used to be (and still is) a kind of free for all
and many Americans don’t know that they are required to use a
trademark (which they didn’t used to) if they quality stamped-but
now their federal governemnt is being more hard nosed about it.

Brain Press
Box 1624, Ste M
Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7
Canada

tel: 403-263-3955
fax: 403-283-9053
Email: brainnet@cadvision.com

<<HUGE snip!>>

In the states it used to be (and still is) a kind of free for
all and many Americans don't know that they are required to use
a trademark (which they didn't used to) if they quality
stamped-but now their federal governemnt is being more hard
nosed about it.

Can someone expand on this, please?

<> Marrin T. Fleet <>
<> MFleet@cc.memphis.edu <>
<> SCT Corp. in adminstration of: <>
<> Admin. Computing Services <>
<> The University of Memphis <>
<> Memphis, TN 38152 <>
<> 901-678-3604 <>

The US of A requires that gold jewelry be stamped with a
trademark and if it is stamped as to content (14k, 18k, etc.) it
must assay to within a few percent of the stamped amount. (3%?)
but it is not required to stamp anything. Only if it is stamped,
it must be accurate. If I remember correctly it is required to
have the trademark but not the karat content. Ricky Low

Hi Charles

You mentioned plumb solders in your post about trademarks. I
have wondered if 20Kt plumb is the same thing as 20Kt. Hard, Med.
or Easy? Thanks.

Linda
Red1Eagle @ aol.com

It’s also required to stamp Sterling Silver and I think
gold-filled. I assume fine siver, too, a fact I need to have
confirmed.

Candy

In the states it used to be (and still is) a kind of free for
all and many Americans don’t know that they are required to
use a trademark (which they didn’t used to) if they quality
stamped-but now their federal governemnt is being more hard
nosed about it.

Can someone expand on this, please?

I’ve been trying to find out the same info. There is a short
thread in the Orchid Archives on Hallmarks. I wrote Susan
Chenoweth who was active in that thread and she gave me the URL
of the US Patent and Trademark office
http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/menu4 .html
It’s pretty straight forward and understandable. Not much
legal garbly-gook. (You can download the forms and register
it yourself. All in all, it looks like it will take at least
6 months.)

As I understand, it is the same as Charles Brain posted. To
legally quality mark your pieces you must have a registered
trademark stamped on them too. I do not know where you actually
find that info, other than here on Orchid, which is where I
learned about it.

Basically I think the registration process is about $250. I
have lawyer working on it. Susan suggested a TM search because
if you end up trying to register a mark that is the same or
similar to another’s, you will be rejected. To register a new
one, it costs $250 again. I do not know how much searches are,
but it could save some bucks in the long run.

I recently asked for more info on this topic and no one
responded. Please, if anyone is out there with more info, we
would gladly receive it.

Candy Glaze

Anything you sell must, by US law, have a quality stamp AND a
trademark stamp. That goes for all metals. You can refer to the
FTC Guides for the Jewelry Industry, final revision April 15,
1996, and the FTC Guides for the Jewlery, Precious Metals, and
Pewter Industires, 16 CFR 23 in the Federal Retister of April 8,
1997. You can see all of this at the FTC website at:

Barry Hansen
Hansen Designs
http://www.hansendesigns.com

Good posting:

For those interested the JVC Appraisal Standards Task Force
Guidelines for the US jewelry industry are available free of
charge on my web site as I was one of the contributing members
to this over two year effort . It should be read by anyone in
the retail jewelry business who tries to write an appraisal.

Marty Haske

;I believe the correct interpretation of US law is: that IF the
jewelry  is QUALITY (eg 14kt) stamped then it HAS to have a
Trademark (or signature) ALSO… not quality stamped, no need for
trademark or identification of seller…

I “believe” that if Joe Jeweler stamps "Joe Jeweler, Boston"
then that it sufficien if it is quality stamped…Any legal
types out there care to correct me…

Marty Haske

If you dont want to go through the search for 16 CFR Part 23

lt http://www.gis.net/~adamas/16cfr.html
16 CFR Part 23 JVC Guidelines

http://www.gis.net/~adamas/jvc.html
JVC ATF

Marty Haske


Adamas Advantage Software: for Gemology, Mineralogy, Inventory

SAS2000 Spectrophotometer Analysis System For Diamond Color Grading,

Diamond Synthetic And Treatment Detection, And General Gemstone ID

Software Demos And Grading Issues at  http://www.gis.net/~adamas/

Email Martin Haske mailto:@Martin_Haske for more information

 

If you manufacture and sell a piece which is stamped for
precious metal content the piece must contain at least that
percentage of precious metal. You cannot be under karat at all.
And if you stamp the karat you must stamp your mark also.

I don’t think it’s required to have your mark registered as a
trademark. They just want to be able to track you down if your’e
selling under karat. All stamped jewelry must be plumb, that
means it must be at least the karat indicated. Prior to the mid
seventies stamped jewelry could be under karat by 1/2 of a karat.

Dick Caverly
rcaverly@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/rcaverly/home.htm

You mentioned plumb solders in your post about trademarks. I
have wondered if 20Kt plumb is the same thing as 20Kt. Hard, Med.
or Easy?

Hi Linda, been on the road for a month workshopping, just home
and getting back into things and playing catchup-teaching
workshops here for a few weeks, our very own Eve Wallace is
coming tommorow to do a catches and findings one.

If the solder is plumb it should be sold as plumb. Plumb means
that the actual carat of the solder is the same as its
designation-it just melts lower than the alloy. 20k is then 20k
gold that melts lower so it can be used as a solder-but it is
still 20k material. Same for 14k etc, 14k plumb solder is 14k
gold that melts lower and so serves as a solder. Charles

Brain Press
Box 1624, Ste M, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7, Canada
Tel: 403-263-3955 Fax: 403-283-9053 Email: @Charles_Lewton-Brain

Metals info download web site: Learning Center - Ganoksin Jewelry Making Community
Product descriptions: http://www.ganoksin.com/kosana/brain/brain.htm
Links list hosted at the Metal Web News:
http://tbr.state.tn.us/~wgray/jewelry/jewelry-link.html

Hi Candy Glaze, I saw your post on trademerks…I looked up a
possible answer at:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/basic_facts.html
wow is that a mouthful!!! What it says is that regist
Duane Baysinger