Franchise Holdings International Inc., Worksport Ltd.’s parent company, has reached a major intellectual property milestone with the granting of the sole rights to the Worksport name for light truck tonneau covers in the U.S., its primary business area for a 10-year period, which is also renewable.
“The awarding of this trademark to Worksport, once and for all, protects our valuable intellectual property like no other development. Worksport is our tonneau cover brand and no one else can make that claim or use the brand name,” said Worksport and FNHI CEO Steve Rossi. “It’s a great day, long in coming, and paves the way for the company to grow its business unfettered by concerns surrounding its brand name. This is a critical aspect of growing our companies value.”
According to the U.S. Patent Office, “Trademark protection is granted to the first entity to use a particular mark in the geographic area where it operates, regardless of whether the mark is registered.”
Worksport and FNHI’s portfolio of intellectual property has been rapidly expanding for several years. Worksport now has four trademarks, with two each in Canada, the U.S. and one pending in China, where the pending award reflects Worksport’s presence in that market. One has already been granted in the US.; the present trademark is the company’s second, and most critical trademark. The Worksport logo and word mark are now both fully within the company’s intellectual property portfolio.
In November 2019, Worksport received official USPTO notice that its recently submitted ‘‘Alpha’’ patent application – as it has been referred to internally – has reached a pivotal milestone, with the granting of ‘all claims submitted’ that were made in the application relating to new technologies that will be utilized in a new line of technologically advanced products to be offered by Worksport. Earlier in the year, Worksport received U.S. patent approval for its new full-bed access light truck cover, the only one in the industry that does not extend into the truck bed. The company in 2019 was also awarded first full trademark rights to ‘its Worksport trade name in Canada’ for the stylized Worksport logo.
“Worksport possesses the word and logo mark and the name Worksport, a remarkable arsenal of intellectual property,” said Rossi. “Along with our trade name protection in Canada, we are truly a protected North American operator, with full and absolute protection rights for our brand identity, and we intend to enforce our rights in each locality.”
