<p>so i made this twitter account, which is sorta like collegeproblems twitter account, except it is specifically named after my school, hence “xproblems”. it has a little over 2,000 followers, and i was the first to ever use the brand Xproblems, which u can say for example is harvardproblems. Now, a bookstore right next to my campus is using this brand “harvardproblems” on their t-shirts and hats and selling them. i dont wan’t them to be making money off of my brand that i first created through my twitter account. can i take legal action and ask them to either stop using the brand or give me a percentage of the profit since i created the brand. or is this not allowed?? do i have to trademark the name?</p>
<p>Speak with a lawyer. Your school likely has legal help available (for free in some cases for students). If not you will need to go seek advice of a lawyer (preferable one that specializes in copyright/trademark disputes). The lawyer should be able to give you a frank opinion on how much of a case you actually have (something like “harvard problems” might be considered a common phrase while “harvardproblems” would be considered more unique and trademark-able). </p>
<p>One thing is for sure though, YOU CANNOT WAIT ON THIS. For trademark laws if you do not defend your trademark in a reasonable time frame you lose all rights to the trademark (this is the real reason why you see crazy lawsuits sometimes like the NFL suing churches for showing the super bowl because they are legally bound to do so).</p>
<p>I don’t know if this will help but some things you have to get a patent like a copyright sort of thing. If you do not own this you can not claim any legal rights. You may want to look into this, I also think you should contact a lawyer asap. Good Luck</p>
<p>You aren’t using it for profit, so someone else can. If you envision turning it into a profit-making venture, the first one to trademark/copyright it usually gets it.</p>
<p>Post in the Parent’s Cafe. They’ll be able to help you better.</p>
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<p>Copyrights are automatic as soon as an a phrase or sentence is written under US law. Also not making a profit off of it doesn’t mean someone else automatically can. You can hold copyright or trademark over an item and not make any money off of it but prevent others from doing so (various free software packages do this all the time).</p>
<p>How hard is it to make a trademark? Do u have to pay any money to trademark it? and what happens to all the money that the person made who used the trademark?</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>Are they actually using your content or just the name? I think you’d have a hard time proving that “X Problems” is uniquely yours since almost every college has one of these twitters.</p>
<p>They’re using the X problems for my specific college on shirts and hats at the bookstore. I believe i was the first one to come up with such name because I in fact created the twitter account before anyone else, and they took the hashtags i’ve created such as #xproblems and #xsolutions and put it on their products…</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is worthwhile but have to talked to the store manager or anyone in the store about this issue?</p>
<p>No I have not. Should I? Bcuz then they can get the idea to trademark and possibly do it before i do…</p>
<p>sue there arse off</p>