Top Five Mistakes a Trademark Beginner Makes
Over recent months, our firm has been dealing with clients who have attempted to trademark their brand themselves and have not been successful. In some cases, they were the cause of their disastrous attempt to obtain trademark protection.
Of course you could read all about trademarks and the government IP body in each country is super helpful, except you don’t realise that they are not allowed to provide any advice in regards to the application, they can only guide you by directing you to the website with all the details on how you can go about trademarking your brand.
So you read and troll the internet for all the information you can obtain to guide you through how you would apply for a trademark. However , like anything, you may know the steps to how apply for the trademark but you don’t know the ins and outs of the process like a trademark expert would.
Taking expert advice in branding matters could save you a lot of heartache and expense in the long run, as when mistakes are made they are costly to fix up. Ask one of our client’s! I am sure she would be happy to speak to you about her experience. She’s learnt her lesson, she’s going to be using our firm for her rebranding.
To pay for professional help is worth it, as many of our clients who have asked us to assist with their applications have found that we are able to overcome the IP Examiner’s objections as we understand what they are looking for and also what they require to overcome any objections to successful registration. You don’t need to come to us necessarily, but you should get expert advice.
Top 5 mistakes trademark beginners make:
1. They give too much information to the Government body that governments trademarks.
2. They don’t understand the protection classifications, they either under protect or overprotect, even worse they apply for the wrong protection.
3. They apply for the weaker protection trademark without knowing it.
4. They tell their competitors or ex-partners that they are trademarking without taking into consideration that they need to pass a two-month mandatory public advertising period where anyone could object to the application.
5. They trademark the wrong brand. This happens when beginners do not understand their brand strategy, they apply for something thinking that once they receive the registration they are protected. Not true, if you change any aspect of your logo design, it voids your trademark protection even if you have the name of the brand within the logo.
Good luck if you are going to attempt to trademark your brand yourself. We are here to assist if your trademark application hits a road block.
