hey, im am by far not an expert but will try to shed some lite on the trademark issue you get a trademark to protect your PRODUCT "if you will". But the trademark has to be a protectable trademark. There are serveral catagorys of trademarks; genaric, descriptive, sugestive, fanciful. Genaric trademarks are not protectable. This is important, but sorta hard to explain, heres a breif example of a generic, non protectable trademark along time ago asprin was a trade mark, asprin was the name of acetal acid (aka asprin). But after awhile everyone called acetal acid ASPRIN. making it a generic name. Because people say,give me a asprin, not give me a acetal acid tablet.so now asprin is the name of the medicen not the trademark or logo if you will (hope you understand).now there trademark for asprin is usally the companys name like ... anways there is a office PTO patent trademark office were you can register your trademark. You dont have to register with the pto but there are extra advantages to registering. If you register your trademark is protectable all across the U.S. Non registered are only good in the general area of sale. SO if you sell in texas, the trademark is only good in texas, and someone in ... main could use the same name. You can lose your right to your trademark if you dont use it. There are a pretty good amout of rules and what have you,as you can tell. If you made lets say Joshes candles and were not registered, anyone could make candles and slap a Joshes candles logo on it and not break any trademark laws as long as they dont sell them in your same area. So if you have a pretty good business runing and want to protect your name/trademark It would be a good idea. hope i helped alittle