Brand names that are profitable are often duplicated, which is why trademark watch is so important. If you don't keep track of your trademark on a regular basis, it can become weakened over time. The benefits of registering corporate brands as trademarks in the countries and regions where they trade, manufacture, and transport their products are well understood by most businesses. In reality, however, registering a brand, company, or product name is merely the first step toward successful use and protection. Third-party trademark applications must also be examined for potentially infringing marks in order to ensure that valuable marks are effectively protected and enforced.
What Trademark Watching Is and Why It Is Important: The Importance of Early Detection
As with any type of trademark infringement or misuse, the earlier such applications are identified, the easier it is for companies to enforce their IP rights. This is especially true when a third party seeks to register a potentially conflicting trademark, as brand owners with prior rights must lodge objections (or oppositions) to such registrations within stringent deadlines.
Such oppositions may be required to be submitted as soon as 30 days after the publication of a potentially conflicting trademark. It will still be possible to oppose trademark registration if the deadline is missed; however, it will be more expensive and difficult to do so.
Early detection is also important for combating conflicting uses and/or applications more widely, as well as for accumulating evidence of misuse that can be utilized to combat such conflicts. Online trademark watch service is especially important in this case.
Even if you do not intend to take action, trademark watching is a good approach to keep track of what competitors and third parties are up to. For example, watching a competitor’s trademarks may alert you to a new application in a different area, allowing you to detect a competitor’s intention to join a new market early. Of course, this knowledge might be useful in developing your overall business plan.
What is Trademark Watching and Why It Is Important: Types of Trademark Watching
Trademark watching is used to keep an eye out for possibly conflicting applications, and it usually takes one of two forms:
- Identical trademark watch: Identifies visually or phonetically identical markings or devices (e.g. logos)
- Similar trademark watch: Identifies identical and confusingly similar marks.
Both types of watches can be offered with or without a recommendation. An attorney’s recommendation on the results of an identical or similar trademark watch based on their analysis of prior rights and the anticipated impact on a business is included in trademark watches with opinion.
The registries that are watched will decide the geographical extent of the watch. This service, for example, could be limited to a single country, all of Europe, or even worldwide.
What to Watch
Watch is an important tool for proactive watching of registered marks and devices, assisting businesses in detecting and responding to trademark infringement and misuse in a timely manner. A trademark strategy, on the other hand, must take into account the size and scope of the brand owner’s portfolio to be genuinely effective.
A brand owner’s watching strategy, whether managed in-house or outsourced to a specialist, should ideally cover all relevant trademark registers to identify applications for identical and related trademarks.
In general, services for observing can include plain word marks, styled words, and logos. If the visual effect of a trademark is particularly significant, it’s worth paying attention to the modified phrase or emblem to ensure this element is captured.
It may not be possible or cost-effective to watch every trademark in every jurisdiction if a company has a large portfolio and trades abroad. If this is the case, it should try to prioritize its efforts by identifying and prioritizing core brands and core jurisdictions that require total protection, rather than ‘nice-to-have’ or secondary brands, which may become core in the future.
Need Help Watching Your Trademark?
While registering your trademark, trademark watch is important, it is not the last step. Unless accompanied by trademark infringement litigation, trademark registration is nothing more than a piece of paper.
There are hundreds of trademark databases, and it’s possible that your trademark or a confusingly similar trademark could be registered and used without your knowledge. This is why you should hire someone to keep an eye on your trademark.
The registration of your trademarks is just one aspect of a comprehensive trademark protection strategy. It is the responsibility of trademark owners to keep an eye on the marketplace to ensure that no one else is attempting to register a confusingly similar trademark and thereby causing dilution of the registered mark.
Conclusion
Consider using our service to keep tabs on people who are attempting to register trademarks that are confusingly similar to yours. Every week, we’ll review all new trademark applications and alert you if any that are confusingly similar to yours have been submitted. This will allow you to take prompt action to prevent others from registering trademarks that are similar to yours.
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