A trademark is a form of intellectual property protection, much like copyright.
While copyright protects creative and artistic forms of work (once in a tangible form) such as books and music, trademarks protect names, slogans, logos etc.
They both, however, can still be infringed upon.
What is infringement?
Infringement, in short terms, is the breaking of a rule. The rules of your trademark are that it belongs to you, and no one else may use it without permission from you.
When a trademark is infringed upon, it amounts to intellectual property theft.
IP infringement can occur on purpose, or by accident, and could lead to financial losses and a devastating lack of recognition for your work.
What forms can infringement take and how can it be avoided?
During your trademark registration, Trademark House will perform rigorous checks to ensure that your mark is not unintentionally infringing upon – or simply too similar to – another trademark.
If this is the case, then you will be notified so that you can make appropriate changes to your mark. This ensures that you are protected from infringement, whether that be you infringing unintentionally on another mark, or someone else infringing upon your work.
Trademark infringement generally occurs most often in the form of replicas – or ‘knock-offs’ — of well-known branded products.
It could be a fake luxury bag, a t-shirt, or pair of shoes; if the design or pattern is trademarked, then it is illegal to reproduce in any way.
Replicas are often sold under the guise of being genuine, fooling consumers into spending their money on a product that is not what it is presented as.
For many large companies, duplicates of their products are almost impossible to stop, due to the sheer volume of fake products being produced.
They are still able to issue take-down notices for fake items that come to their attention.
However, while there are some duplicates being sold at the luxury retail price-point, others are sold for a fraction of that price, making them appealing to consumers who like the original product.
Unfortunately, with many people wanting to be able to buy luxury products at an affordable price, the duplicate industry is a booming one.
That doesn’t mean that it’s a completely lost cause, though, and the same situation certainly won’t be the same for all trademark holders.
Trademark holders have the ability to take an individual or group to court over trademark infringement, and with trademark registration, these cases often end in favour of the holder.
The assistance of trademark registration can provide proof of original ownership, and may help to resolve legal matters more rapidly.
Trademark registration may also be of great help when a large company claims that a smaller company has infringed upon their mark.
A recent case of this is the Bentley v. Bentley case (the motor company, and a smaller UK-based clothing company).
The car manufacturers wanted to sell their trademarked Bentley design on clothing in the UK.
However, there already exists a Bentley clothing company, with their own original designs (unrelated to the former), trading in the UK.
What ensued was a legal battle, with the Bentley car company attempting to void the other’s trademark so that they could sell their own clothing range.
However, thanks to Bentley clothing’s trademark registration, which proves existence far before Bentley cars wanted to sell clothing in the UK, the case appears to be working in their favour.
In some cases, like the above, the two companies may come to an agreement. Otherwise, it is up to the court to decide which trademark has the right to be registered in a particular country.
Registering your trademark can help to protect your work from those who might wish to take advantage of it.