About trademarks
What is a trademark?
A trademark is defined as a name, symbol, or other device identifying a product or service officially registered and legally restricted to the use of the owner or supplier.
To be a trademark, your brand must be legally registered.
Usually, your brand can be officially registered in your own country.
You apply to register your brand in your country. BATTLE helps brand or business name owners to register a trademark. A registered trademark is a trademark that is legally registered by your country.
You can claim strong title to a trademark, especially if nobody holds any earlier rights to your brand, and your brand does not copy anyone else's.
Earlier rights to brand names may interfere with rights to a registered trademark.
So assert title to your brand at the earliest. Battle can help your trademark rights stand strongest.
Top 5 Reasons your trademark can be refused
Top 5 |
The top 5 reasons your trademark can be refused include: -
- An earlier mark.
- A sign devoid of distinctive character.
- A brand that is not capable of distinguishing one supplier's goods/services from those of others.
- A mark which contains a State emblem.
- A sign that is exclusively descriptive.
What is intangible, and yet can block competitors?
Your business name or brand is intangible. This means it is not a physical asset akin to a building. Even though your brand is intangible, you can strengthen its market position.
Your trademark can be associated with your reputation by consumers.
Consumers can recognise the promise underlying a trademark. Consumers can seek to buy the goods over and over again. From a supplier. From a brand they can identify as the source.
Your business name and trademark can be intangible. That means not in the form of something you can touch or feel. Yet consumers can get a feeling from a brand. Consumers can link a trademark with quality of service. Consumers can link trademarks with price levels. Consumers can link trademarks with goods they prefer to buy.
So a registered trademark is intangible. But while it is intangible, consumers can hold strong links to what a trademark means. So, a trademark can be quite a powerful asset.
Top 10 reasons to register a trademark
Our top ten reasons to register a trademark include: -- The owner to the trademark rights is officially registered.
- The country gives the owner, and nobody else, exclusive rights to use the trademark for the goods/services.
- You can use a registered trademark as an asset. You can licence its use. You can prevent unauthorised use. You can obtain royalties from use of registered trademark rights. You can sell a registered trademark just like you can sell a property.
- The costs of registering a trademark are usually much lower than the value than can be built up in a registered trademark.
- Once there are no earlier rights, the trademark is yours alone. Your brand can be legally registered, and used in commerce in accordance with the trademark laws.
- When you are the sole owner of a registered trademark, this means you can invest in marketing and advertising, and building your identity with the brand.
- Big corporations do not usually like to put any new goods on the market, without having the trademark registered. If it is appropriate for them, it should also be appropriate for smaller organizations to consider registering a trademark.
- In trade, owning a registered trademark extends the boundary of its coverage to the whole country. So its scope is much wider and greater than the premises from which you trade.
- You can expand the territory covered by a trademark. If you own a brand in Ireland or Great Britain, you can expand the coverage to the whole EU, with a population of 500 million, assuming someone else does not have any earlier rights in a similar trademark.
- Owning a registered trademark can help to prevent someone seeking to imitate or copy your name for similar goods or services. Even though a registered trademark is an intangible asset. it can be quite powerful in trade, and especially in court, or in getting copycats to cease copying your name.
You can trademark names, logos, signs or brands
You can register a trademark for names, logos, signs or brands. But, to be eligible to be registered, the trademarks must meet certain legal conditions. For example, the trademarks should be distinctive. They should not be exclusively descriptive.
When you register a trademark, you obtain exclusive rights to the use of the trademark. The exclusive rights establish your title or ownership to the trademark, under the law. You can use the registered trademark to prevent copying or counterfeiting.
When you obtain a registered trademark, you hold proof of ownership of the trademark, as at a particular date.
Laws about trademarks
There are separate laws that deal with registered trademarks in most countries. The laws are similar between countries. Further, for the EU, there are EU-wide regulations that harmonize the trademark laws of member states.
The original intent behind trademark law was to encourage trade and businesses that developed intellectual property in their brand names or reputation. Trademark law seeks to give certain rights to trademark owners. Such rights are granted and protected under trademark laws to stop the reputation being damaged, infringed or copied by others.
Trademark laws are necessary for consumers and for organizations
Consumers rely on trademarks to indicate the supplier of the goods or services which they buy.
Without laws for supporting registered trademarks, consumers would not know whether the goods they bought were genuine, or genuinely made by the brand name on the goods.
The role of registered trademarks can be important for ensuring that consumers can rely on the integrity of a trademark. Otherwise, chaos would be likely. Fake goods, imitations, and counterfeiting would become prolific. In such circumstances, brand owners would not invest in brand names, or in promoting their goods. A system of laws supporting trademarks, and trademark registration is required by both consumers and suppliers of goods and services.
To learn more about the role of trademarks for consumers visit our consumers need trademarks too.
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