What It’s Like to Register a Trademark All by Yourself
It’s been official since the day before yesterday— I registered Meander Books as a trademark! It was more exciting than it sounds.
Yes, I know! Maybe it’s a little early to protect Meander Books as a trademark, but I like to plan well ahead. And my plan is to make the first Meander Book so successful that many more will follow. Meander Books is meant to be a kind of digital publishing house, a platform for publishing all sorts of books—special books full of play and fun, without forgetting words and reading.
The first Meander Book will be finished in just under two years. That still feels like a long time, but that’s how long I need. I hope children and parents will love the story and this new way of bringing it to life, so that it is not only a financial success but also brings a lot of joy.
After that, I want to bring authors, illustrators, and musicians together to create many more Meander Books—but without doing everything myself. That will speed things up. The Meander Books tool I’m programming while I create the first book will be the foundation for everything that follows. The texts and illustrations will “only” need to be added. That will still be a lot of work, but the underlying framework will already be in place.
I’m really looking forward to working with other illustrators and hope I can persuade some of my heroes to join in. I’ll also pester a few friends until they make a book with me! I’ll get you all! ;)
That’s why I registered the trademark. It’s all part of my long-term plan, and I’d recommend that everyone have at least a five-year plan (even though everything can change—so stay flexible).
The application itself is not rocket science. I decided to register the trademark across the European Union. There’s a website for that:
But there are a few things to keep in mind. The important thing is that the trademark name does not already exist anywhere in any European country. And there’s more: trademarks that sound similar can also cause problems. For example, if a company called Leander Books already existed and happened to produce interactive books or children’s books, it could object. You definitely want to avoid that: you could lose the application fee (at least €850) without getting the trademark registered.
Some lawyers will register a trademark for you and research possible conflicts with existing marks, but they charge several times the application fee (depending on the offer, between €2,000 and €3,000). I decided against that and did as much research as I could myself. First, I searched online. For example, was the meanderbooks.com domain already taken? If so, that might indicate a potential problem. Luckily, I already own it :) What a relief.
Then I searched every database I could find. And there it was: I found nothing that looked like a problem to me (BUT that doesn’t mean my assessment was correct).
Then one evening I sat down and filed the application. It was pretty straightforward—kudos to EUIPO. Although how easy the whole process was did not exactly reassure me. I kept feeling that I must have forgotten something very important. Surely it couldn’t all be this easy. After a glass of red wine, I finally found the courage to submit everything. (To be clear, I had filled in all the important details BEFORE reaching for the wine.)
I paid about €1,200 to register the trademark. That’s a lot of money for me, and if it hadn’t worked the first time, I might not have tried again—especially since I would have had to find another name I liked as much as Meander Books, which would have been nearly impossible.
When registering a trademark, you have to use the so-called Nice Classes to specify the areas in which the trademark should be protected. That means I can’t start selling spotlights under the Meander Books name one day and expect the trademark to protect me—well, I could sell them, but they would not be covered. Each additional Nice Class also costs €150.
I registered the following Nice Classes:
9 Electronic books; interactive game software; mobile apps; interactive entertainment software; downloadable electronic books; downloadable educational media.
16 Books; children’s books.
41 Publishing services [including electronic publishing].
Once again, I was thinking ahead—perhaps I could have skipped both classes 16 and 41. But one of my dreams is topublish print books and I can also imagine growing into a kind of publishing house that publishes work by other authors. We’ll see how it goes.
In any case, I’d rather spend a little more now to prepare properly. I hate running into problems I could see coming but did nothing to prevent. It felt risky enough to do all of this all by myself.
Speaking of doing it all by myself: I like doing everything myself, but something like this can be stressful and nerve-racking. You are fully responsibleand you alone. No one checks your work, and no one will share your frustration if something goes wrong. People may feel sorry for you—or secretly think, “Well, that was bound to happen when you try to do everything yourself instead of leaving it to the professionals.”
My advice: Take your time and prepare thoroughly. For about a month, I kept coming back to the subject, checking and rereading some things several times. I also clicked through the entire EUIPO form once without submitting it, just to get familiar with the process. Yes, time is money—but in my experience, things going wrong costs much more time AND money. Preparation is invaluable.
Now —after I submitted the application, EUIPO told me that I met the Fast Track conditions, which means the application is processed faster than usual—although that still takes three to four months. The screenshot below shows the process. I filled in the forms on the EUIPO website on 8 July 2020, and the application was published on 17 July 2020. Oppositions could then be filed for three months. But nothing happened! On 29 October 2020, Meander Books was registered for the next ten years. Raise a glass with me and keep your fingers crossed that this trademark marks the start of a wonderfully successful company!
I almost forgot one thing! BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE OF SCAMS!
After the application was published, I received a letter asking for another €1,940 to register Meander Books in a database. The fairly official-looking letter is part of a known scam. I had already paid everything, so I was surprised and searched online to find out what was going on. I confirmed that there are some a******s trying to take money from unsuspecting people. Shame on you!
You can read more about it here: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/de/misleading-invoices
See you soon! Get in touch if you’re planning to register a trademark and have questions, or if you just need a little encouragement to see it through.
P.S. I registered the trademark very early. I could have waited until the first book was released, but two of my traits came together here: impatience and caution—better too early than too late! I hate unnecessary stress, and I suspect I’ll have plenty to do around launch time!
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