Geographical Coverage for Registered Trademarks
Registering a trademark with IP Australia will normally provide you with Australia-wide protection, regardless of where you actually trade. However, as is often the case with the law, there are a couple of minor but important exceptions which need to be understood.
Advantages of Registering Trademarks
Registering a trademark provides you with significant benefits in terms of brand protection. These advantages need to be carefully considered and understood before trading with an unregistered trademark.
Do I Need to Register my Trademark?
Unlike a business name, or a company name, you don’t need to register a trademark before you can use it. However, failing to register usually means that your rights to use your name or brand can be unclear, and it becomes much more difficult to prevent others from using similar marks.
Should you register your trademark by yourself?
Trademark owners often try to save a bit of money by filing their own trademark applications, however this can be a false economy. Trademark applications are a complex matter involving hundreds of decisions which may affect the existence and extent of your legal rights.
How to Register a Trademark for your Name or Logo
This post explains how to register a trademark for your name or logo in six steps. For the best possible outcome, it’s important to plan from the start and engage professional help where needed.
What is a Trademark?
Trademarks are commonly thought of as either names or logos, but trademarks can protect slogans, packaging, colours, sounds, shapes and smells. Understanding the types of things that can be protected by trademark law is the first step towards protecting your brand.
.cn Domain Name registry – spam or not?
Don’t be caught. If you’ve received an email from someone telling you that someone else wants to register your trade mark as a .cn domain, chances are they’ve obtained your trade mark registration details from the public register and are trying to scare you into registering a domain name you can obtain yourself or one that you may not even need or want!
TMP – bogus letter
If you have received an “official looking” trade mark letter requesting $1450 to publish your trade mark and it’s not from your trade mark attorney then ignore it – it’s probably a bogus letter. A few operators originating from Europe have set up an operation to extort trade mark fees from unsuspecting trade mark registrants. What ever you do, don’t fall for this trick – lots have!
Plan and gather your Evidence of Use
If your trademark is descriptive, you should consider collating Evidence of Use in a folder. It’s much easier to collate this folder as you’re going along, rather than try and do it over a number of hours. It’s amazing how much Evidence you could gather and may even forget to include through the years.
When choosing a brand name
This article is about what to consider when your chosing a new name or thinking of re-branding, perhaps because your name is too descriptive. If your name is too descriptive you’ll have to overcome the Trade Marks Office’s objection and supply enough Evidence of Use and convince them your trade mark is registrable.