Securing Your Trademark

How much is a trademark worth? If it’s the Google logo you’re looking at an astounding $49 billion and Microsoft ($42 billion) and Vodafone ($35 billion) are not far behind.

That’s the importance big-business attaches to trademarks – and if you want to safeguard your business with one, don’t waste any time setting the wheels in motion. For there’s no shortage of instances where rivals have nabbed a trademark and its intellectual property and the originator of the product or service is left out in the cold.

*Without a registered trademark, competitors can use your name on similar goods or register it themselves.* But once the trademark is in your name you can bring an action for infringement against anyone using the name on similar goods.

While your name and trademark are unregistered you can put the TM symbol for an unregistered trademark on your products and also use the copyright C symbol next to your logo. But it’s a criminal offence to use the R symbol next to a word or logo which is not registered.

Registering your business with Companies House will not, as is often believed, give you the rights to a trademark and the TM will not protect you from someone else using your name or logo. And even when you have registered your trademark you could lose it if you don’t use it – Gucci had its GG logo revoked in the UK because it wasn’t being used.

In fact the world of trademarks bemuses even the experts - electronics giant Apple was furious when it found its logo was being used on a German cafe but there was apparently nothing Apple could legally do about it and eventually it withdrew its objection.

*To get your trademark you need to register your name and logo with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO)*. This is quite a complicated business (half of all applications fail) so you should think about using an expert agent.

*Check that the name you want can be registered as a trademark and that Companies House confirms it’s available*. Also check that the internet domain name is free.  Make sure that the trademark is going to be part of your long-term plans - a registered trademark lasts for ten years and can’t be changed to apply to any other product.

*You also need to search the UK and European Community Trademark Registers to make sure that no one abroad has already got the name and logo you want*. A member of the Institute of Trademark Attorneys can organise the search for you or you can conduct your own search of the UK Register of Trademark Office in Newport but this won’t disclose marks in use but not registered. 

*A made-up name that no one else has thought of is usually easier to get registered* – celebrated examples include Accenture, Yakult and Viagra.

*Bear in mind that a trademark must not directly describe your product or service* – you can’t say “A great Cleaner” or “A Chocolate Biscuit” – and it mustn’t be misleading.

*What happens if someone objects to your trademark application?* You can put your case to an officer of Trademark Register who will decide whether you can go ahead. You can appeal to the High Court, but this can take literally years to decide – four years is the record… It will save a lot of aggro if you simply try to dream up another trademark that suits what you do.