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Consider legal aspects

Protect your trademark

Relevance & importance Overview Recommendations & practical tips Warnings

A Trade Mark is a device which is unique to distinguish the owner’s product or services from those of others. It can consist of letters, numbers, sounds, smells, colours or a product itself. Trade Marks allow companies and businesses to protect the unique identity of their products and services in the marketplace.

A Trade Mark, like any other industrial or intellectual property, may be licensed, pledged or sold. As a long-term intangible asset, a Trade Mark has the potential to be of significant marketing and economic value to its owner. Abuse of its use by others can be detrimental to the owner. Protecting a Trade Mark is therefore very important.

 

 


Relevance and importance

Protecting a Trade Mark is very important to all businesses, especially in the internet age. The global nature of the worldwide web has heightened competition and presented opportunities for consumer confusion, for example in the case of companies with the same name or those trying to exploit and profit from the good name and reputation of others. Ensuring that your company’s trade name and trade marks are registered is an important safeguard in the event of dispute and provides valuable protection in the marketplace.

You can use your Trade Mark in European Union countries without registering it. However, rights to an unregistered Trade Mark are not automatic and there is now a system for protecting your mark throughout the European Community by making a single registration which can be enforced in any one of the EU Member States. Registration of a Community Trade Mark (CTM) is granted by the Office for Harmonisation of the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) located in Alicante, Spain. A CTM is a gateway not only to the existing single European market but also to a market which is in the process of expansion.

Overview

Businesses should protect their Trade Marks as any other property.

They can be registered at national level to operate locally but they will also need to register it at European level with a CTM to protect it throughout the EU from the action of competitors.

A CTM will protect your, product, services, know-how or intellectual property leaving you free to trade and render services within the entire EU Member State territory.

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Recommendations and practical tips

If you have Trade Mark, get it registered.

A registered mark is effective solely for such goods or services that are specified in the Trade Mark registration certificate. A CTM is effective for 10 years and is renewable for an indefinite number of subsequent terms of 10 years. You should check whether or not a similar Trade Mark has been registered. Filing a protest can help avoid unwarranted and long-lasting litigation necessary to revoke registration of a Trade Mark. The advantage of registering a CTM is that any infringement disputes would be handled in local specialised CTM courts. Cancellation of a CTM registration causes the registration to lose effect across the entire EU. However, CTM registration can be converted into a national registration.

Warnings and potential pitfalls

Failure to register a Trade Mark will expose one of your most valuable assets to potential exploitation by others.

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