WHY IS TRADEMARK REGISTRATION IMPORTANT?

What’s a brand? What’s a trademark? Are they different or the same? Does your business have a brand and do you think it’s lacking a trademark? Do you have similar questions regarding brands and trademarks? If you do then you have made it to the right blog post and in this post, you’ll learn about what a trademark is and why it’s so important for your business.

First of all, a trademark is no different from a brand. It’s simply another way of referring to your brand. Quickly reflect on the popular products you like using, you’ll realise that rather than thinking about the product first, your favourite brand name pops up in your head first even before the product. Now that’s because you have come to love and trust that brand not because other brands don’t offer the same value but simply because that’s your own preference. Now that’s how important branding is.

Branding is great and all, but the real question is why is trademark registration important. Continue reading to find out why.

WHAT IS A TRADEMARK?

A trademark can be your registered business’s logo, word, symbol, slogan, or name. A trademark protects your image by ensuring that other businesses cannot infringe on your intellectual property.

A trademark can also be seen as a way to distinguish your business from your competitors. Failing to register your trademark means you might lose the right to your idea, artwork, and basically everything you put into the brand to make it successful.

Even though trademarks prevent other businesses from infringing on your ideas, their main legal purpose is quite different from other kinds of intellectual property. Unlike copyrights and patents that are used to lay claim to a product, the main purpose of trademarks is to offer customer protection by eliminating the chance of consumers not being able to tell the services of one company from another.

WHY IS TRADEMARK REGISTRATION IMPORTANT?

PREVENTING UNNECESSARY CHANGE

Building a business or company other than a particular brand takes a lot of time, effort, and courage to see it through. Now imagine, working hard for several years to build your brand’s name to its current level and then you realise that you can no longer use that brand because it’s been taken. At this point you’ll have to rebrand your business and rebranding isn’t cheap nor easy and you will lose a significant amount of customers. Hence, in order to protect yourself and your business from such a situation, it’s important you register your trademark.

TRADEMARKS BUILD VALUE

Having a trademark and registering it builds value. If you have a growing business and you are looking for investors, you most likely won’t be able to get investors to invest in your business if it’s not trademarked and that’s because potential investors always check if your business has a trademarked name, key services or products.

Registering your trademark also aids clarity in a merger or franchising of the business which positively impacts its deduced value.

TRADEMARK OFFERS PROTECTION

One can’t overemphasize how important it is to protect one’s business against competitors. For one, unauthorised parties could use your trademark without your permission or authorization to offer your products or services to consumers who trust your brand and may end up damaging your brand and the reputation of your business.

When you register your trademark, it can be seen as building a fence around your business and unauthorized persons or parties cannot come in without your permission. This simply means that once you have a registered trademark those third parties will be afraid of using your trademark.

CONCLUSION

Branding or trademarking your business or company is important but registering your trademark is even more important because having a trademark without registering it is more or less similar to not having a trademark at all since you can lose the rights to your trademark or idea at any time.

Are you resident in the UK? Do you have already have a trademarked business that isn’t registered? If answered yes to both questions then the first step you should carry is to check trademark availability UK. If your trademark is available, then you can proceed to register your trademark.