Built It at Your Day Job? Your Employer Might Own the Brand
Here's a question I'd love every founder to ask before it becomes a problem: if you came up with the name, and you designed the logo, is it yours?
Most people assume yes. A trademark ruling published last week says the answer can be no, and the reason is worth understanding whether you're still at your 9-to-5, you've just left, or you're now the one hiring help.
What happened
On September 14, 2026, the TTABlog reported a precedential decision from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, Olsman, MacKenzie, Peacock & Wallace, P.C. v. Emily Grace Thomas (Opposition No. 91272167). The Board is the part of the USPTO that decides fights over who gets to register a mark.
The facts are simple. Emily Grace Thomas came up with a BIRTH JUSTICE brand in January 2018 and registered the birthjustice.com domain. About a year later, in February 2019, she joined a law firm as an associate attorney. At that point the logo wasn't finished and hadn't been used to sell anything.
At the firm, she and others, working with a design firm the firm hired, developed her early concept into the final logo. She used it to promote the firm's birth-injury legal services. There was no written or oral agreement about who owned it.
When she applied to register the logo in her own name, the firm opposed. The firm won.
Why she lost
Three ideas from the decision matter for founders.
First, an idea isn't a trademark. As the Board put it, "It is well settled that merely designing or inventing a symbol does not create trademark rights." Trademark rights come from using a name or logo to sell goods or services. Having the idea first, and even owning the matching domain, wasn't enough.
Second, use counts for whoever the work is done for. The Board applied basic agency principles. It said that "promotional work for a law firm is squarely within the scope of an attorney's employment." So when she used the logo to promote the firm's services, "any goodwill created by such use inured to opposer's benefit." In plain English: the value she built attached to the firm, not to her.
Third, silence doesn't help you. There was no agreement either way, so the Board applied the default rules, and the default favored the business that was using the mark. Thomas couldn't rebut that, and the opposition was sustained.
It's worth saying that the Board noted she had performed exceptionally well at the firm. This wasn't about whether she was a good lawyer or a good employee. It was about who used the mark, and for whom.
If you're still employed, or just left
A lot of brands start as a side project. That's a good thing. Just be clear-eyed about where the line is.
Keep your brand separate from your job. If you develop and use your idea as part of your work for your employer, the reasoning in this case suggests the goodwill may belong to them. Build it on your own time, with your own tools, for your own customers.
Read your employment agreement. Many include clauses about inventions, work product or intellectual property. Know what you signed before you launch.
Start real use in your own name. The idea and the domain didn't protect Thomas. Selling under the name, through your own business, is what builds rights you can point to.
If you're the one hiring now
This is the side most founders miss. The minute you bring in a designer, a VA or a contractor to help build your brand, ownership questions start.
This case was about an employee. Independent contractors are a different situation, and in some ways a riskier one. Under U.S. copyright law, a specially commissioned work only counts as a "work made for hire" if it falls into one of nine listed categories and both sides sign a written agreement saying so. A logo generally isn't on that list. That means the copyright in the artwork a freelancer creates for you can stay with the freelancer unless they sign a written assignment to you.
Your trademark rights come from your use of the logo in your business. But you don't want the person who drew it holding the copyright in the artwork, especially if the relationship ends badly.
The fix is not complicated. It's paperwork, done at the start.
Put it in writing before work begins. Your independent contractor agreement should say that the work belongs to your business and include a signed assignment of rights.
Cover the people inside your business too. If you have employees or a co-founder who helps build the brand, say in writing that brand assets belong to the company.
Hold your accounts in the business's name. Domains, social handles and the trademark application itself should sit with the business that's actually using the mark.
File in the right name. Only the owner of a mark can apply to register it based on use. The Board said exactly that in this case. Filing in the wrong name is a problem you don't want to discover later.
The short version
A great idea and a matching domain don't make a trademark. Use does, and the law looks at who that use was for. If nobody writes down who owns the brand, the default rules decide, and they may not decide in your favor.
If you're building a brand with other people's help, or you're about to leave a job to launch something of your own, this is worth ten minutes of attention now instead of a fight later.
You can see how I handle trademark searches, filings and contractor and client agreements on the Services page, and the questions founders ask most are answered on the FAQs page. Citrus Legal is based in St. Pete. Trademarks nationwide under federal law; business contracts in Florida.
If you'd like to talk through where your brand stands, book a free call. I'd love to be a resource for you.
Sources
The TTABlog, "Precedential No. 7: Law Firm owns BIRTH JUSTICE logo, not the Associate who Conceived the Brand" (September 14, 2026): https://thettablog.blogspot.com/2026/09/precedential-no-7-law-firm-owns-birth.html
This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.