Intellectual Property
Protecting your Trade Mark protects your business
A Trade Mark is a sign that distinguishes your goods and services from those of others.
A Trade Mark can be a word, logo or a combination of both. It can be a shape, sound, smell or colour.
A Trade Mark can be used as a marketing tool so that customers can distinguish your products and services from those of others.
A Trade Mark should be distinctive in respect of the goods and services for which it is used.
For a registered Trade Mark to be infringed, it must be registered through the relevant official government body in the specific country.
A key to safeguarding your innovation
A Registered Design is a legal right.
It protects the overall visual appearance of a product or a part of a product in the country or countries in which you register it.
A Design is legally defined as being “the appearance of the whole or part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture or materials of the product or ornamentation.”
This means that protection is given to the way a product looks. Whilst texture and materials may influence the way a product looks, protection does not extend to the feel of a texture or what the product is made of.
Because it’s yours and yours only
Copyright can include a number of different works.
There is no official registration system for Copyright in most countries. It is an automatic right.
You should only copy or use a work protected by Copyright with the Copyright owner’s permission.
The commissioning of a work does not mean that you own the Copyright in it.
Copyright does not protect ideas for a work. They have to be written down or “fixed”.
A Copyright protected work can have more than one Copyright, or another intellectual property (IP) right, connected to it. Whilst Copyright can protect the artwork of your logo, you could also register your logo as a Trade Mark.
Support every step of the way
IP can often be about strategy. From time to time, it is advisable to carry out an IP audit. This is to make sure that all your IP rights are correctly protected and if so, whether they are being used correctly to maintain them free from attack.
Guidelines should be put in place regarding what procedures should be followed when developing new brands and updating existing brands.
It is important that checks are made to make sure that logos are consistent with those registered, that Trade Marks are protected for extended ranges of goods and services, that they are registered in the correct owner name and address and are correctly marked.
Greater emphasis should be placed on “cleaning up” portfolios, thus rendering them more cost effective and efficient.
Jurisdiction
Trade Mark registration is possible in almost every country of the world.