Website Terms of Service

Last Modified: December 13, 2024

IF YOU ARE VIEWING THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT PRIOR TO REGISTERING ON WWW.TRUSTTREE.COM (THE “WEBSITE”), PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND WILL ONLY BECOME EFFECTIVE UPON ALL OF THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS BEING MET:

1. YOUR REGISTRATION ON THIS WEBSITE; AND
2. YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT; AND
3. YOUR RECEIPT OF NOTICE FROM TRUST TREE LEGAL, P.C. THAT WE ARE WILLING TO PROVIDE LEGAL SERVICES TO YOU AND ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT.

IF ANY OF THE FOREGOING CONDITIONS HAVE NOT BEEN MET, THEN NO ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP EXISTS BETWEEN TRUST TREE AND YOU.

THIS LIMITED SERVICES ENGAGEMENT AGREEMENT (hereafter, “Agreement”) is made between Trust Tree Legal, P.C., 798 Berry Road #41400, Nashville, TN 37204 (“Trust Tree”, “we” or “us”) and you (“you”, “your” or “Client”), the person registering hereunder. If you are entering into this Agreement on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you represent that you have the legal authority to bind such entity to these terms, in which case the terms “you”, “your” or “Client” shall refer to such entity. If you do not have such authority or if you do not agree with this Agreement, you may not sign up for or use this Website. If after your purchase we find that you do not have authority to bind the entity for which you ordered, you will be personally responsible for the obligations in this Agreement and the order you placed, including without limitation, the payment obligations. We are not liable for any loss or damage resulting from our reliance on any instruction, notice, document or communication, reasonably believed by us to be genuine and reasonably believed by us to be originating from an authorized representative of your company. If there is reasonable doubt about the authenticity of any such instruction, notice, document, or communication, we may, but are not obliged to, require additional authentication from you.

This Agreement is intended to meet your lawful goals and to state the respective parties’ rights and obligations. The Agreement to provide legal services to you covers the time period from which you accept this Agreement and Trust Tree receives your payment through Trust Tree’s payment processor to the time Trust Tree has provided you with the services provided for under the Agreement. After the provision of services provided for under this Agreement, Trust Tree has no further obligation to you and any existing attorney-client relationship shall terminate.

Importance of Review of this Agreement

It is crucial that you carefully review all terms included in this Agreement. If you are uncertain about the meaning of any aspect of this Agreement or wish to discuss the Agreement, you may contact Trust Tree by email at info@trust-tree.com.

Nature and Scope of the Services to Be Provided

Trust Tree provides unbundled legal services. This means that the legal services provided by us only extend to those services that you have requested and purchased, and we have provided. After you have purchased a service, and we have agreed to provide it and have completed the work, you cannot expect us to perform legal services in any additional capacity. We will provide you with adequate notice of the scope of our relationship and what services will be provided. We will not provide any services that we do not specifically inform you will be provided.

For example, if we assist you with the filing of a federal trademark application, it is not our responsibility to provide any other legal services after the application is filed except to serve as an attorney contact for future correspondence from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). Likewise, after you have paid for the requested services, and we have performed them, we will not expect any further payment for the original requested legal services performed by us.

As with any legal service, we cannot guarantee any legal outcome.

Responsibilities of the Parties

You agree to be truthful with Trust Tree, to cooperate, to keep us informed of any information or developments which may come to your attention and to abide by this agreement. Further, while it is impossible to predict the course of a representation, it may be important for us to contact you immediately, or upon short notice, to confer with you regarding the status of your trademark matter. An inability to do so may result in your trademark matter being prejudiced and detrimentally affected. Accordingly, you agree to keep us informed of your current address, telephone number, and email address.

Fees

Trust Tree agrees to perform the trademark services for flat fees. Flat fees are determined based on our experience with this type of matter and are not based on the number of hours that we expect to work, rather the relative value of the service. The flat fees will be agreed to before the work is performed. These fees are considered fully earned upon receipt and are to compensate this firm for being available to represent you, for committing time for this representation, which has precluded the acceptance of other employment, or from being precluded from taking an adversary interest or position in this matter.

Confidentiality-Security-Retention of Records

In compliance with the professional rules and restrictions of the Tennessee State Bar and the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct, Trust Tree is bound by stringent professional standards of confidentiality. Any information received by Trust Tree from you is held in strict confidence and is not released to anyone outside of this practice, except for that information which you provide that must be disclosed to the USPTO in furtherance of any trademark services you request, unless you give informed consent or as provided for under applicable law. Client records are securely retained in electronic files, along with secure backups, for the period of years required under Tennessee law.

All payments are processed by a PCI-compliant payment processor, and no credit card or payment account numbers are stored on our servers.

Cancellation and Amendment

At the time of checkout, you will be provided the opportunity to review your order to ensure that it is correct and that the information you provided contains no errors. You are responsible for ensuring that the order information is correct.

You must let us know by emailing us at info@trusttree.com if you wish to cancel or amend your order. Please wait for confirmation from us before assuming that we have received your instructions. If we do not confirm your instructions within a reasonable time, please contact us again.

Your right to cancel or amend ends once we have begun to carry out your order. For example, where we accept your order to file a trademark application, we typically begin carrying out your order within 24 hours. In the event of cancellation or amendment, you may be liable for any costs, expenses or losses incurred in our carrying out your order including any costs or expenses arising from any contract with or instructions to third parties or agents for the purpose of performing your order.

Once we have filed your application changes or additions cannot be made.

Trademark Filing Fees

The USPTO charges a fee to file for many of its services. For the convenience of our clients, Trust Tree offers many services as packages that include the estimated filing fee. The USPTO, however,  periodically changes its fees or requires additional fees. If the fee charged by the government exceeds the fee estimated in the package, you are responsible for the difference in fees.

Application Filing Fees

The filing fee for trademark applications can range from $250 to $750 per class. In order to save money for our customers, Trust Tree files using either the TEAS Standard system or the TEAS Plus system. Among other things, these require electronic communications with and responses to the USPTO. Trust Tree may offer some application filing packages consisting of the government TEAS Standard electronic filing fee of $350. If the stricter TEAS Plus system can be used for your application, Trust Tree will use this system. The TEAS Plus system streamlines the USPTO review process and has a lower filing fee of $250, but requires additional Trust Tree legal services to process. If we are able to use the TEAS Plus system for your application, Trust Tree will still charge $350, of which $250 will be allocated to the USPTO fee and $100 to a Trust Tree processing fee. 

The USPTO will not cancel the application or issue a refund after the application is filed. The filing fee is a processing fee that the USPTO will not refund, even if you ultimately do not receive a registration for your mark. Therefore, please review all information submitted to Trust Tree carefully prior to filing of the application.

 

Disclaimer of Guarantee and Estimates

Nothing in this Agreement and nothing in Trust Tree’s statements to you will be construed as a promise or guarantee about the outcome of the matter. Trust Tree makes no such promises or guarantees. Trust Tree’s comments about the outcome of the matter are expressions of opinion only.

You should be aware that registrability of trademarks depends on a number of factors. An examining attorney at the USPTO will review the application and may issue refusals. The most common reasons for refusing registration are because the mark is:

• Likely to cause confusion with a mark in a registration or prior application;
• Descriptive for the goods/services;
• A geographic term;
• A surname;
• Ornamental as applied to the goods.

The examining attorney may also issue requirements concerning, for example:

• The goods and services listed in the application;
• The description of the mark;
• The quality of the drawing;
• The specimens.

Furthermore, the examination practice is not always consistent.

WE CANNOT GUARANTEE OR PROMISE THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE A FEDERAL TRADEMARK REGISTRATION.

Public Information

Please be aware that when you apply for a trademark registration you are making a public record. Accordingly, all of the information and documents you provide to the USPTO during the prosecution of an application and maintenance of a registration are available to the public and will be viewable on the USPTO website even if the application abandons or the registration cancels or expires. Third party websites and Internet search engines access and use this information, including your name as well as any addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses that you provide to the USPTO.

Discharge and Withdrawal

You may discharge Trust Tree at any time. When Trust Tree’s services conclude, all unpaid charges will immediately become due and payable.

Trust Tree may withdraw from our representation of you if you fail to fulfill your obligations under this Agreement, including your obligation to pay our fees and expenses, or as permitted or required under the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct. You should be aware that several types of conduct or circumstances may require us to withdraw from representing a client and that other circumstances or conduct may clearly constitute a basis for withdrawal. Among these are misrepresentation or failure to disclose a material fact; taking actions in contravention of our advice; and conflicts of interest concerning another client. We will attempt to identify in advance and discuss with you any situation that may lead to our withdrawal, and, if withdrawal becomes necessary, to immediately provide written notice to you.

Our Relationship With Other Clients

You agree that Trust Tree’s representation is limited to those services that you have requested and purchased, and we have provided. You agree that Trust Tree may represent parties in the future on matters that may be adverse to you, so long as such future representation does not involve confidential information which we gained from our representation of you pursuant to this Agreement. In any event, we will seek to prevent any and all conflicts of interest by notifying clients to select another firm when necessary. During such a process, we will preserve client confidences and will work to make such a transition as smooth as possible.