Top 10 Reasons You Should Care About Trademark Registration

Many people think that registering a trademark is just for the large corporations, the likes of Google, Microsoft and Apple, but they could not be more wrong.

In an age where people are forgetting about creating new businesses, products and services and instead thinking about replicating someone else's success, it more important than ever to know what you can and cannot do with regards to trademarks and how to protect yourself.

Check out our top 10 reasons for trademarking your business:

1. Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find you.

• Trademarks help you distinguish your products and services from those of competitors and help identify you as the source.
• Trademarks indicate a consistent level of quality of your products and services.
• Awareness of your brand and the goodwill embodied in your trademark can often take decades to establish.
• Differentiating your product / service from competitors is increasingly difficult to achieve, especially over a protracted period.
• Trademarks are the most efficient commercial communication tool ever devised to “cut through the clutter”; capture the consumer’s attention; and make your products / services stand out.

2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• Trademarks protect the consuming public by preventing confusion as to the source of goods or services.
• If the product made under a brand turns out to be defective, consumers have accurate information about the source of a product and can return it to the manufacturer or supplier for a refund.
• Trademarks give consumers the ability to protect themselves by relying upon known brands of products or services.
• Trademarks provide consumer convenience by allowing consumers to identify (by word, logo, slogan, package design, or other indicators of origin) which product or service they would like to purchase or to avoid purchasing.
• Trademarks provide consumer convenience by allowing consumers to base their purchasing decisions on what they have heard, read, or experienced themselves.
• Trademarks motivate a consistent level of quality, helping the consumer to decide whether to purchase a desirable product or service again or to avoid an undesirable one.

3. Trademarks are among the most economically efficient communication tools.

• Trademarks help you distinguish your products and services from those of competitors and help identify you as the source. Trademarks indicate a consistent level of quality of your products and services.
• Trademarks can wrap up in a single brand or logo intellectual and emotional attributes and messages about your company, reputation, products and services, consumers’ lifestyles, aspirations, and desires.
• Trademarks can work effectively across borders, cultures, and languages. Famous marks can be recognized as brands even when the native population speaks a different language and reads a different alphabet.

4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.

• Trademarks are one of the few assets that can provide you with a long-term competitive advantage.
• Trademarks are usually the only business asset you have that can appreciate in value over time.
• Trademarks are leverageable – they provide value beyond your core business, and can pave the way for expansion (or acquisition, if desired) of your business.
• Brand Expansions such as KELLOGG’S – from “ready-to-eat cereals” to “snack bars and breakfast bars” and ARMANI – from “runway apparel” to “perfumes and eyewear”

5. Trademarks support stronger sales volume, stronger margins, and can provide price maintenance legally.

• It is often difficult to see significant differences among competing products. Your brand can be the critical factor in driving the consumer’s purchase decision!
• The price variance among competitive offerings can also be substantial, often by 100% or more in the same setting, such as a newspaper. Once again, your brand can make the difference.

6. Trademarks can make hiring easier.

• People prefer working for well-known and well-regarded brands and their companies.
• Popular brands generally reflect successful businesses, which tend to have better employment opportunities, remuneration and benefits, and potential for career advancement.
• Popular brands are often inspirational and aspirational, qualities that feed into a person’s natural ambition.
• Because popular brands inspire positive feelings in people’s minds, they make employment opportunities more attractive to candidates.
• For the same reasons, employee retention can be higher for popular brands.

7. Trademarks are more affordable than you think

• Trademark filing fees can be as low as £340 in the United Kingdom to obtain trademark registration. Although many agencies will add large sums on top of this so be careful.

8. Trademarks are a very flexible and creative form of intellectual property protection.

• Visual: Words, Slogans, Alpha-numeric, Non-English words and characters, Non-Roman alphabet words and characters, Position / Location, Logos and other designs, Shapes, Colours, Three-dimensional objects, Motion
• Auditory: Music e.g. Registration No. 2315261 (Intel) and Registration No. 3034331 (McDonald’s), Sounds e.g. Registration No. 3020512 (“wild cat growling”) and Registration No. 2827972 (“cricket chirping”), Voices e.g. Registration No. 2790126 (“You’ve Got Cash”)
• Olfactory: Smells and Scents e.g Registration No. 2560618 (bubble-gum scent) and Registration No. 2596156 (strawberry scent), Tastes, Tactile

9. Trademarks open the way for businesses to most effectively utilise the Internet.

• Trademarks are often the “top-of-mind” address for an Internet user seeking information about a company and its products / services.
• The same commercial magnetism of a brand that drives repeat purchases in the bricks-and-mortar world also drives visitors to a website.
• Higher traffic on a website translates into higher rankings on search engine results, bringing even more traffic.
• As a result of the importance of the Internet to marketing, it is very important to obtain desirable domain names at the same time that a trademark is adopted.
• Only one domain name consisting of the trademark is permitted in a given Top Level Domain (like .com).
• The Internet also has the potential for widescale unauthorized use of your brand, requiring vigilance to police both proper use of your brand and infringements of it: META tags, Embedded or hidden text, Counterfeits and design knock-offs, Grey market goods

10. Trademarks are one of the most effective weapons against unfair competition.

• In the United Kingdom, deceptive and misleading advertising is prohibited by: consumer protection laws, unfair competition laws and the UK IPO department itself.
• Of all the forms of intellectual property, the courts and administrative agencies are often most familiar with trademarks.
• Courts are more inclined to grant remedies when unfair competition is present.

If you're looking to protect your business and your brand then get in touch with one of the Trademark Registration team today.