What legal jurisdiction does Shopify operate under - Canada? Or is there a US version of Shopify, like Amazon has Amazon US, Amazon Canada, Amazon Mexico, etc.?
The reason I ask is to understand the trademark implications.
Say, if you have a TM registered in the US, to sell products x, y, z, then someone else registers a TM with the same name in Canada, to sell the same products as you, would you have to remove those products from your shop because you would be infringing the Canadian Trademark?
Or is there a way to set up your shop as a US shop, so any other TMs in Canada would not affect it?
I don’t think it matters where Shopify operates out of. Unlike Amazon acting as THEIR STORE … Shopify is a platform to build YOUR store. You can create a store in any country and then export to other countries if you wish. As for TM If you want protection in Canada, you would need to register your TM there. If someone already has it registered there, they could challenge you there… can get costly. Factors (just IMO) that prevail with TM’s …who uses it most …who used it first… and ultimately who has deepest pockets.
Thanks, that’s so helpful. There is no conflict in Canada for my TM at the moment, but I was wondering what would happen if someone registered the same trademark in the future. So if I’m understanding your answer correctly, I can create a US store, and am protected by my US trademark. If a Canadian customer orders from my US store, that’s irrelevant, because I’m selling from the US. The only problem would be if I wanted to open a store in Canada at some point in the future and someone else had theoretically registered the same trademark in Canada by that time. Correct?
Yes that is correct… also if you have a registered USPTO TM be sure to use the ® symbol, lets
people know you’re registered. A deterrent if anything. If you should decide to sell in Canada, unless you plan huge volumes, I would just ship from your USA store and let buyers deal with border issues.
