What is trademark, A trademark is required for all small and large businesses. A trademark differentiates the company’s product or service from the product or service of someone else in the market. Today we will be learning about trademarks, types of trademarks, why they are important, how to get them registered, and why trademark safeguards business intellectual property. And now let’s discuss some of the most frequently asked questions about trademarks and some useful information that will prove useful when you trademark.
What is trademark?
A trademark is a word or expression, logo, or design aspect or symbol used by an organisation, firm, or company to identify and distinguish their service or product from all others distinctly.
Any such thing that is valuable enough to be marked so that your brand becomes the one-stop out of all other stops can be marked as a trademark. . Because of the guarantee made by the law, trademarks are considered intellectual property. The owner has the luxury of the right of exclusivity to use the mark in as much commerce as exists. Other individuals would then employ marks that are functionally equivalent to theirs because these would be confusing the consumer and damaging their reputation too.
Types of Trademarks
There are several kinds of trademarks, and one needs to be aware of the various kinds while attempting to protect your brand to the fullest. Some of them are:
- Word Marks: Word, letter, or number mark marks like Coca-Cola, Apple, or IBM. They are replicating the same words and the way they do it as a company.
- Logo Marks (Design Marks): Design or logo marks try to have the look of a logo or symbol like Nike’s swoosh or McDonald’s golden arches.
- Combination Marks: A combination of words and logos in a mark. The Adidas logo, for instance, and “Adidas” and the ubiquitous three-stripe appearance are a combination mark.
- Service Marks: They are service marks and not product marks. A service mark would be a hotel’s trademark or a consulting firm’s logo.
- Certification Marks: These are marks to declare the origin, quality, etc., of goods or services, e.g., the “organic” certification mark.
- Trade Dress: Product or package appearance in some manner in which the product or package can be recognised as being of a particular brand.
Why Trademarks Are Convenient
Trademarks have benefitted business firms and consumers in a variety of ways. Some of the advantages of trademarks that make them desirable have been elucidated in detail here below:
- Brand protection: Your brand is trademark protected. Your trademark grants a monopoly of trade under your trademark on registration, and no other individual can utilise similar names likely to confuse the minds of the consumer or dilute your brand.
- Consumer Confidence: Trust and faith in consumers are created by a trademark. If the consumer is aware that Nike or any mark is a trademark, then for sure he/she will have faith in whatever is going to be provided by the product or service. For instance, whenever the consumers look at the Nike mark, actually they are aware that the mark is for sport.
- Law of Security: You can sue any company that is using your mark after the registration is finished. Apart from all those, the chances are very low that you will gain rights over your mark, particularly in court.
- Asset Value: Your mark is a dollar-value intellectual property business asset your company can dollar-value and count. In mergers and acquisitions andin the sale of license agreement agreements, both your marks are an asset to negotiate towards profitability.
- Worldwide protection: As yet another national safeguard of trademark, a trademark can be protected worldwide through agreements like the Madrid Protocol, through which a company’s business endeavour can acquire several registered trademarks simultaneously from various nations.
How to Register a Trademark
It can’t be trademarked, but if you do know a little bit about how to do it, that is fine. Step by step, here is a step-by-step guide on how to trademark:
- Search Trademark: Pre-registration search is advisable. to find out whether your desired trademark ever existed or not. The search may be from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or respective authorities based on geographical locations.
- Ready to File Your Application: You then go ahead, after obtaining the process of showing that your trademark is unique, in filing an application at the trademark office and handling it. You will be required to file your application with:
- Clear print of your trademark (if you have a word, logo, or design).
- The mark that is going to be used in relation to the goods or services.
- The filing basis (trademark) never should or would in due course.
- Examination: Then the trademark office will check the filing and determine if it is correct or incorrect. It is a test whether interference would be warranted with some other trademark registration.
- Publication: The trademark is subsequently published in a government gazette on the date of examination. Third parties are also provided with a chance to oppose the registration of the trademark if they hold an opinion that the trademark is prejudicial to their rights.
- Registration: Provided that the receipt of any objections, if any, or objections overcome to your satisfaction is received, your trademark is registered, and a certificate of registration of the trademark is granted to you.
A registered trademark automatically expires 10 years from the date of first registration. You will be required to renew it as a form of continuing ownership of your trademark. You will be required to continue using your trademark in commerce and be in the process of filing maintenance filings accordingly.
Trademark Infringement: What to Do?
Trademark infringement is when you let some other person make use of your trademark just or almost just the way you make use of it but without authorisation. When there is infringement, the following are what you would have to do:
- Send a Cease and Desist Letter: The owner of the trademark would first most likely do. spend money by sending a cease-and-desist letter, requesting the infringer to desist from using the trademark.
- Settlement or Negotiation: Or if at all, the two may negotiate, perhaps on terms of licensing or otherwise.
- Litigation: Or sue for infringement. This can result in an injunction by a court against use of the mark by the infringer and even damages.
Trademark Maintenance
To maintain your trademark security, do the following:
- Repeated and repeated use: A trademark is consistently used by businessmen in trade with the intention to maintain it in its original state. Non-use of the trademark for any duration (in most countries traditionally three consecutive years) renders a trademark abandoned.
- Safeguarding forms complete: Various countries at times have to retain forms filled to maintain your trademark registration in its original state.
Conclusion
It is worthwhile to invest in trademarks in order to protect your ideas and intellectual property. Trademarks provide businesses with a monopoly to use their name as a trademark, relief to the courts in case things do not work out, and relief to consumers in trusting them. It is not quite such an easy task to register the trademark, but you will be going through the process of deciding whether indeed you do have an identifying mark that no one else will ever use. A registered trademark is the property of your business both domestically and internationally.
FAQs Related to Trademark
1.) How is a trademark different from a copyright?
A trademark is utilised in the protection of names, symbols, and slogans utilised in the identification of goods or services, and a copyright is utilised in the protection of original work of authorship like fine arts, books, and music.
2.) Trademark registration fees how much?
In addition to being location-based, the trademark fee may also be type-based. In the United States, it is $250-$350 for each good or service class from USPTO.
3.) Is it possible for me to trademark a name or logo that’s already in existence?
No. New and not reasonably similar to marks already in use must be employed by a trademark. The same existing trademark will result in refusal to use or subsequent issues in law.
4.) How long is too long before applying for a trademark?
After the registration period would be dependent but usually 6 to 12 months now, as currently it is on demand. It would take more time if the application is weak.
5.) Is a lawyer necessary for trademark registration?
Although optional, it is in your interest if you get your lawyer to do it for you in writing, particularly with business corporations and expensive or complex trademarks. Your lawyer will set it up properly and read it to you.
6.) Can a trademark be transferred?
Yes, assignable and transferable to another. That is an “assignment,” and as a matter of course, normally it is accomplished in the trademark office by filing in order to be effective as an assignment.