IP lawyers or attorneys, also known as patent and trademark or intellectual property lawyers or attorneys, play a vital role in protecting and safeguarding intellectual property rights. These legal professionals possess specialized knowledge and expertise in the complex field of intellectual property law.

In most countries, the trademark holder has 5 years to commence the genuine use of the mark from the date of registration. What does it mean for your trademark registration strategy?

As well as individual marks, there are two other kinds of trade marks that can be registered – certification marks and collective marks. Collective marks are trade marks distinguishing the goods or services of members of a civil society organisation from the goods or services of others according to the quality, origin or other characteristics of goods or services bearing the collective mark.

Trade mark proprietors are usually not exactly patient when it comes to unauthorised or unlawful use of their trade mark, so you would better refrain from such attempts. Trade mark parodies, however, are usually exempt from the above rule.

A good trade mark gives confidence to consumers and urges them to keep buying the trade marked goods, thus solidifying the market position of the proprietor’s trade mark against competing manufacturers. Hence, trade marks are essential means of market competition. We have collected several functions of a trade mark to illustrate a handful of examples of how you can use your trade mark.

The trademark has not only to be registered but has to be actually used as well in the same form as it was registered. If the logo is altered only in minor elements which do not affect its distinctive character, use of the logo is still considered as genuine use of the trademark.

Whenever a new product is born, a name needs to be found for it. Though somewhat similar to the birth of a child, where you try to find a name differing from those of other children in the family, the problem of naming a product is much more complicated, since all similar products are, in a sense, sisters and brothers of your product. Besides, you need to raise, care for and watch over the name of your product, if you want to avoid future complications.

The more of it you give away, the richer you become. What is it? Well, love, for one. But looking from a different angle, franchising could be a good answer, too! If you give away the business experience and trade mark of a successful undertaking, both you and your partner might become richer. In other respects, love and franchise are not the same. Love is always free, but you have to pay for a real franchise.