As a business, your brand identity is one of your most precious assets. It is ultimately what separates you from other competitors within the industry, giving you a sense of uniqueness in what is often a crowded marketplace. Brand protection through trade mark registration is the only way to ensure you are able to preserve the integrity of your brand. To emphasise this point, here are some of the core reasons underpinning the essential need for brand protection in a commercial context.
For Deterring Competitors
The beauty of trade mark registration is that this information is made available on a public database for all to view. This means that any firms who were considering taking a markedly similar route with their brand will likely think twice before doing so. Rather than becoming involved in a dispute over intellectual property, incumbent firms will simply choose something which has yet to be registered.
This deterrent aspect of brand protection is a powerful tool in preserving your identity. Halting any potential conflict in its tracks before it has the chance to properly emerge will save you the time and expense of having to enter into a legal dispute to protect your brand if it is not registered.
Easier Than the Alternative
By this I mean that protecting an unregistered trademark is significantly more difficult than protecting a registered one. If you have engaged in brand protection prior to any infringement occurring you only need to demonstrate a similarity between yours and the offending mark. The standard for this is whether the two brands are confusingly similar. This will be decided on a case by case basis, with the burden of proof resting on the firm promoting the unregistered mark to prove they are sufficiently dissimilar.
Brand protection is still possible for companies who have not registered their intellectual property, it is just more difficult. They must themselves prove that the general public are not likely to be confused by the alleged similarities. Trade mark registration allows you to be free of this process, and ultimately makes it easier to safeguard the intellectual property of your brand.
Nothing Lasts Forever - Except Brand Protection
This statement is half true, in the sense that indefinite protection still requires the marks associated with your brand to be used on a regular basis. Your registration can continue in perpetuity, so long as you remember to renew it once a decade. It is also important to remember that any New Zealand based trademarks must be used at least once every three years to remain valid.
Provided these steps are followed, your firm will be able to enjoy the benefits of brand protection for as long as you wish to. This ability to differentiate yourself from your competitors for as long as you like, while holding the power to stop any new firms intruding on your intellectual property, is one of the most powerful tools your business has at their disposal.
If you would like more information on how to trademark a name, trademark registration or brand protection in New Zealand we invite you to take a look at our website: www.ipol.co.nz
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rachel_K_Dawson
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6942772
No comments:
Post a Comment