Ashley N. Klein, with Morris, Manning & Martin. (Courtesy photo)

Apple's product launches are notoriously secretive. To help keep Apple's new products (for example, Siri or the Apple Watch) secret during a product launch, Apple first files its trademark applications in Jamaica instead of the United States.

It may be surprising to learn that major U.S. companies are now routinely using this small island country in the Caribbean to protect their trademarks—and the products they've worked years to develop. And there's a good reason: Filing trademark applications in Jamaica can legally provide them with six months of silence before filing in the U.S. and opening the door for competitors to learn and try to emulate their new product or adopt similar branding.

Companies want to keep new trademarks and branding under wraps so they can develop marketing campaigns, gobble up website domains and social media handles and finalize plans for the big brand launch. It's critical to protect these trademarks to ensure another party doesn't adopt the same or a similar branding in the meantime—and one-up your company in very costly ways.

If your company is operating in a competitive industry, you probably realize that people can find out a lot about your upcoming offerings by checking the information provided in your company's trademark applications. Obtaining trademark rights is a complex, vital process to protecting a company's brand. Big tech companies manage to keep their latest products under wraps while benefiting from trademark protection. Understanding their trademark strategy could help your company take a page from their playbook.

In a nutshell, not every country's intellectual property office maintains the same searching protocols. For example, in the United States, anyone can search the Patent and Trademark Office's online database to identify a trademark any company has filed. The same can't be said for Jamaica or other countries like South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, and Tonga, that do not maintain searchable online trademark databases.

In fact, the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office only allows visitors to search filings in person in its Kingston office. Alternatively, an individual can request that the Jamaican Intellectual Property Office search trademark filings for them, but a Jamaican address is required to receive the results, which can take several weeks to obtain. Thus, filing in Jamaica essentially permits claiming a trademark in secret—a strategy Apple has used to file hundreds of trademark applications in countries like Jamaica that maintain difficult-to-search trademark registers.

The final piece of the puzzle comes down to timing. Trademark registrations in the U.S. are prioritized based on the date they are filed. A U.S. trademark law provision (Section 44 of the Lanham Act) allows a U.S. trademark application to claim priority from a foreign filed trademark application that was filed within six months. Put differently, if the U.S. application is filed within six months of the foreign-filed application, the U.S. application will be given the earlier foreign filing date. This six-month period can be a huge advantage to a marketing team that is preparing for a significant product or brand launch.

There are many reasons a company might consider this strategy:

• Keeping competitors at bay. An early identification of a brand for a company can tip the company's hand with respect to the company's innovation and product direction.
• Preventing domain name-squatting. It is not unusual for domain name squatters to watch trademark filings to identify and register domain handles that map to the applied-for trademark, if the trademark filer does not register the domain prior to filing.
• Controlling brand message. For large or well-known companies, public trademark filings can lead to unwanted intrigue or speculation, making it difficult for companies to comment on, or control, the perception of their future product among consumers.
• Maintaining a "Surprise and Delight" marketing campaign. Public trademark filings could risk spoiling the surprise of a new brand if the public gets ahold of the new name or new product before the company has delivered its surprise launch.
• Buying time to articulate clear position and messaging. Utilizing this trademark strategy could buy additional time for a company to articulate and finalize its brand message and to develop marketing and promotional materials while preserving important trademark priority to the brand's name.

Obtaining trademark rights is a complex process to protecting a company's brand. Companies that rely on new products for growth should consider using this legal strategy to develop marketing campaigns, adopt website domains, and finalize plans for a new product launch. It may mean the difference between a product launch that thrives—or fails.

Ashley N. Klein is an attorney in the intellectual property practice of Morris, Manning & Martin. She focuses on trademark matters and intellectual property litigation and is based in Atlanta.