Beginners Guide: Trademark

Beginners Guide: Trademark

What is a Trademark?

A trademark is a sign that distinguishes your brand from those of your competitors.

Registering Trademarks:

If you register your trademark you’ll be able to protect your brand, for your product or services and you will be able to: take legal action against people who do take your trademark without consent, sell and license your trade mark, and use the ®symbol to make sure other people do not take it and warn them that you will take further action against them if they do wish to use it without your permission.

What you can and cannot register:

Your trade mark must be original and exclusive and it must include: words, logos, colours, sounds and/or a combination of these. Your trade mark cannot be offensive, deceptive, be too similar to other trademarks, and describe the goods or services it has relevance to, and it cannot look too familiar to any state symbols such as state flags or authentications.

Protected designs and symbols:

You can’t register any sign if it already exists or contains a design that already has been registered and protected under an International agreement. The purpose of the international agreement is to prevent the use of an enrolment of trademarks that are very similar or the exact same as: armorial bearings, flags and other state symbols, official signs, authentications, other emblems, abbreviations and names of other organisations. 

Renewing your trademark:

Your trademark must be renewed every 10 years, but it can be renewed 6 months prior or after the expiration date.

By Nancy Pope

Yr 10 Regents Park School

Southampton