After reading this entry on the US Patent and Trademark Office website I discovered that you cannot Trademark the title of a single book or single work. You can however trademark the name of a series, which is good to know since I’m in the process of writing a children’s series! Also according to this page from the USPTO you are not required to register the mark with the USPTO.
“You can establish rights in a mark based on use of the mark in commerce, without a registration… If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of ownership of the mark, regardless of whether you have filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). However, you may only use the federal registration symbol “®” after the USPTO actually registers a mark, and not while an application is pending.”
Now for the really important question… How much does federal trademark registration cost? If you register without the costly assistance of an attorney it will be $325 to file electronically.
While a literary work can be copyrighted for about $45 the same is not true for a book title-book titles cannot be copyrighted. So the best thing to do for someone like myself who is building a brand is to trademark. Unfortunately you cannot claim a trademark until it is being used in commerce. So, if you’re not quite ready to go to market with your product it’s best to keep your intellectual property to yourself.
koiland 