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Is your company watching its trademark rights?

Fondia
Blogs February 21, 2020

You created the logo and name that captures the right look and feel of your company. You secured a trademark that lets you stand out on the market and you manage to register it in the territories relevant to you. You are probably thinking that you do not have to deal with this matter again for the next ten years until the renewal of the legal protection of your trademark is upon you.

You eagerly with an unwarrantedly grand gesture strike it from your long to-do list.

Stop right there.

We can assure you that while we, as much as the next guy, love an empty to-do list, this is just not good practice. Namely, there are many countries where trademark offices do not check during the trademark registration procedure whether there are any earlier possibly conflicting trademarks in place. It means that the earlier trademark owners themselves are responsible for monitoring later trademarks in order to oppose them if necessary. This can be quite burdensome if there are no proper tools to carry out such a watch and sometimes it is even hard to assess whether a later trademark could be a threat to your business or not.

It is time critical to become aware of such possibly conflicting new trademarks because there are strict deadlines for filing these oppositions. We cannot emphasize the importance of early detection enough. Not prohibiting the use and registration of the conflicting trademarks hinders your trademark from fulfilling its essence, which is to distinguish what you want to sell consumers from other similar types of goods or services other companies want to sell. For example, if another company starts selling similar products as yours using a sign similar to your trademark, it is obvious that we as consumers may get confused and buy that company’s products instead of yours. Avoid the rerouting of the fruits of your investment into your business to other companies and monitor the relevant market for later trademarks.

How to monitor trademark infringement?

Fondia’s global IPR and Technology team will gladly help to make your life easier. We will provide the tools for the trademark watch, we will weed out the unnecessary information and we will help you decide what to do when we come across potentially conflicting trademarks. We offer an annual fixed rate for our trademark watch service that depends on the number of the trademarks monitored regardless of the number of reports annually sent. Our watch report is always reviewed by a legal counsel, who will provide you with clear recommendations on how to proceed.

Make the most of early detection and keep an eye on potential competitors with our cost-effective trademark watch service.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for more information and a 15-minute consultation on your portfolio.