About trademarks

A trademark is a word, symbol, design, combination of letters or numbers, or other device that identifies and distinguishes products and services in the marketplace. Once developed through advertising, marketing, trade shows, and other means, trademarks become one of your most valuable assets. Your customers identify your firm with your trademark.

Anything that distinguishes the products and/or services of a company and is capable of graphic representation can be protected as a trademark. To cut a long story short, you can register much more as trademarks than you probably imagine. For example:

• Wordmark
• Figurative mark (Logo)
• Combined word and figurative mark
• Slogans
• Colours
• Abbreviations/Initials
• Shapes
• Sounds

For maximum protection, more than one trademark registration may be necessary (for instance, for a word mark and a separate device mark). We will be pleased to advise you about all options relevant to your company and its trademarks.

A trademark provides protection to the owner of the mark by ensuring the exclusive right to use it to identify goods or services, or authorize another to use it in return for payment. The period of protection varies, but a trademark can be renewed indefinitely beyond the time limit on payment of additional fees. Trademark protection is enforced by the courts, which in most systems have the authority to block trademark infringement. 

In a larger sense, trademarks promote initiative and enterprise world-wide by rewarding the owner of trademarks with recognition and financial profit. Trademark protection also hinders the efforts of unfair competitors, such as counterfeiters, to use similar distinctive signs to market inferior or different products or services. 

>Using a trademark does not provide you with trademark rights in all countries. Should somebody else register a similar trademark for similar products or services, you will have no rights to object to this use under normal circumstances.

>To avoid such a situation, it is wise to register your trademark at the earliest possible stage, in the relevant countries. Only by registration of the trademark, will you acquire exclusive rights to a trademark.

>A registered trademark entitles you to act against infringements. Based on trademark rights, you can take action not only against identical and similar trademarks, but also on certain conditions, against trade names and domain names. Trademark registration offers wide protection.

When registering a trademark, you need to specify the products and services that will be associated with your trademark. The large majority of countries of the world have adopted the International Classification of Nice. This system groups all products and services into 45 classes - 34 for products and 11 for services - permitting you to specify precise and clear classes covering your trademark. The protection that is offered to a registered trademark covers only the classes specified at the time of registration, thereby allowing two identical trademarks to coexist in distinct classes.We provide a helpful Class Search tool, which allows you to easily determine the classes your products or services are related to. You can find the link to this application when ordering your service. 

If you are doing business in many different countries or you expect to do so in the near future, you would be wise to register your trademark in these countries. Every country has its own trademark register. In principle, you would require one trademark application in each country nationally.

However, many countries have signed treaties, making it possible to obtain trademark registration in multiple countries by filing just one trademark application. For example, if you wish to register your trademark in all countries of the European Union, only one application is required. There are several countries that co-operate, which means that you can option trademark registration in many countries with one trademark application.

We are absolutely frank about the chance of registration and we deeply care about our clients' time and money. If you wish to register your trademark (logo, name) in more than one country, please let us know which countries you prefer, we would be pleased to help you determine the best strategy for your trademark applications.