Most of the entrepreneurs across the globe are already aware of the fact that having a Registered Trademark is vital for their businesses. However, many of them still overlook the utmost importance of having an ideal Trademark Protection strategy in place.
A trademark can be a unique combination of letters, words, designs, sounds, and other similar elements, which distinguish the products and services of one company from those of another. As time passes by, a trademark can indeed acquire a remarkable amount of reputation and goodwill, and further, become your most valuable marketing tool. Hence, by incorporating a registered trademark in your brand development process at an early stage, you can efficiently extract significant advantages for your overall business. So, let us now make ourselves familiar with a few key considerations and strategies of trademark protection for businesses.
1. Give Priority to Valuable Trademarks
Quite often, brands and businesses employ multiple trademarks across their services and products; for instance, they may operate their business under one logo and name, sell a variety of products under unique product logos and names, and run a series of marketing campaigns with catchy taglines or slogans.
If we consider the value a trademark can add to a business, we can understand why entrepreneurs get tempted enough to seek trademark protection for every other slogan, logo, and word in their marketing portfolios. However, there is also a dire need to consider the fact that obtaining and enforcing multiple trademarks can prove to be a costly affair. Besides, it doesn’t make any commercial sense to file a Trademark Application for every single mark in your suite of brands. Hence, you should always consider giving more priority to the trademarks that provide the greatest value; for instance, flagship brands and business names deserve more importance than the slogans or product names that are part of short-term advertising campaigns and limited-time offers.
2. Keep your Future Business Objectives in Mind
Your trademark strategy must focus on the fact that your brand or business shall develop and potentially expand in the future. While filing a trademark application, you must include not only the products or services that your business presently caters to but also the ones that your business can reasonably foresee offering with time. After filing a trademark application with a specific list of products and services, you can’t modify the same at some later stage to include the products or services, which belong to a broader category than the ones included in the original trademark application. Let us understand this situation with the help of an example – suppose you had filed a trademark application for jewelry last year, then now you can’t amend that trademark application to include a clothing line. In this particular scenario, it becomes essential to file a new trademark application for including the additional set of products or services.
3. Identify your Target Markets
It is a matter of fact that yes – the Trademark Rights are country-specific. A trademark application filed and accepted in one nation doesn’t grant you the corresponding rights in another nation. Hence, for ensuring trademark availability, you should seek trademark protection in the countries where you are presently offering products and services along with the ones where you are planning to expand your business in the future. If in case you fail to do so, then your trademark may be unavailable in some of your target markets, which, in turn, shall force you to launch your company under a different brand name there. Consequently, you may even lose upon your already existing valuable brand reputation and goodwill.
4. Perform Trademark Search at an Early Stage
For making sure that your proposed trademark is available for use and registration, it is undoubtedly imperative to perform trademark clearance searches at an early stage of your brand development process. Although the upfront cost of performing a trademark search may prove to be high for startups and small businesses with limited resources and tight budgets, the same proves to be inexpensive if compared with the costs involved in a possible Trademark Infringement lawsuit. Besides, it is always highly advisable to seek the assistance of an experienced Intellectual Property (IP) attorney or trademark practitioner to perform a trademark search.