Trayvon trademark (vanity)

I'm just wondering if any Freeper lawyers out there know how Trademarking a cartoon character would work. Me and my brother have been working on a cartoon the past few months and we got the domain name and copyrighted the cartoon character, but now we want to trademark it with a logo so we can use it to sell junk, tee-shirts, coffee mugs etc etc ..IF it sells. Just getting ready before we post it on the web. So we went to a lawyer who told us it cost $2,500 just in the US alone to trademark it on the Fed level which sounds a bit high being that the numbers I found on the government website listed $350, and this website above listed $159. So out of curiousity I remembered the name "Trayvon" was trademarked and did a search and this came up, just one listing after another for everything from Cds, DVDs, hoodies, cartoons, charities etc etc. and incredibly they even trademarked the "If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon" sentence. So how did they do this? I doubt they laid out $2500 for each one of these. Thanks

Yeah it’s a crap shoot, like playing lottery, I don’t even have to guess it will fail no matter how many episodes we draw, but I just want to make sure our butt isn’t going to be ripped off if it does strike a nerve. It amazes me all the rings a person has to go through just to do that. It seems to me the only winner in this is the government. I was look at the Mickey Mouse trademark record, it just goes on and on and on an on for everything you could possibly imagine. There’s absolutely no need for that, but the government being the thieves they are makes sure you trademark for every single solitary item in existence. Look at this, this is ridiculous. This is just blatant ball busting by the government to extract as much money as possible from a successful corporation....

http://www.trademarkia.com/trademarks-search.aspx?tn=mickey+mouse

Put the trademark on paper with your fingerprints. Mail it to yourself certified mail and have it date stamped, and never open it until you get the registered trademark. In fact it’s a good idea to keep it unopened as long as you use the TM. This is the way my husband protected his songs until they were published.

You know what I was thinking of doing that my brother is completely against, is making a cartoon about Hillary just to utterly destroy her quest for supreme power. I was thinking of having her go into a clothing store - but draw her wearing a Nazi like floor length black leather coat and have her standing 3 feet tall, and have huge bodyguards behind her. Then have her scream at the clerk “I WANT SOCKS!” and then have the clerk say “Oh yes Ms. Clinton I am a big fan! What kind of socks would you like, red or blue socks?” and then have Hillary scream “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?” Then later on have her going to a restaurant and order a salad with this waitress asking “Would you like French or blue cheese dressing?” and again have Hillary scream “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?” Just make her out to be the most evil vile witch this side of creation, which wouldn’t be hard. We do all animation by the way, no comic strip cartoons. My wife does an excellent Wizard of Oz “wicked witch of the west” type voice that we could use for Hillary. I think that would really get some major attention but my brother is such a freakin’ lib he won’t do it. He voted for Obama twice if you can believe it as did my Aunt. My Aunt totally regrets it now but he doesn’t. He thinks all these Obama F ups are being misinterpreted, that Obama is the “wise one” and it will all work out. This is the mentality I’m working with.

WOW! Now that is a *great* idea! I love Freep, I always get awesome answers like this which is like trying to pull teeth from any place else! THANK YOU THANK YOU! Can you believe I was on the phone yesterday with a lawyer for 40 minutes and she mentioned none of this stuff, it was all money money money money.

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