Trademarks are used to distinguish a company’s goods and/or services sold by other companies in the UK and around the world. Your logo can take the form of an emblem, symbol, insignia or shield; can also be a shape. The decisions to be made are whether (1) it is worth the effort to register the logo, (2) the effort to do it yourself, or (3) hire outside consultants to manage the process for you.
In the UK, there is no legal requirement for your business to register logos or any other trade names or trademarks that are used to identify your business to the public. As long as a company has sufficient turnover, sales expenses, and marketing activity, companies can use the Law of Imitation to protect their business.
The difficulty with this approach is that your company will need to demonstrate that it has the required level of goodwill and reputation in the marketplace that justifies logo protection. It is not an easy feat for start-up companies.
Also, as long as the logo qualifies for copyright protection (as an artistic work), copyright can be relied upon to protect the logo (this copyright protection is extended globally by individual countries implementing national laws that comply with the provisions of the Berne Convention, which includes the United Kingdom). There are downsides to this approach, because (1) there is no public register available for inspection by other companies to determine whether or not their logo is protected in Europe or the UK, and (2) copyright ownership must tested in each box.
Register
Registered trademarks appear in public records that can be searched by any member of the public with an Internet-enabled device.
Once on the Registry, competitors who come too close to copying your logo can be directed to the Registry and warned of illegal competition caused by using a logo too similar to your company’s. It is easier to prevent unfair competition by registering a logo or trade name.
What does the registry give me?
Trademarks registered in the United Kingdom and Europe (as well as in the United States) give the owner a legal monopoly to use them in respect of the products and/or services in respect of which they are registered. For example, if your business sells shoes, logo registration would protect any other merchant in the relevant country from using your logo. Because trademarks are granted on a country-by-country basis (with Europe’s main exemption being the Community Trademark, which provides protection in European Union countries), no other company can use the trade name to sell shoes without your permission. You can stop other companies from using your logo and take legal action to prevent them from doing so in the future.
search before use
The Trademark Registry provides other benefits. Before adopting a logo, it makes sense to find out if there is another company using a similar trademark in the countries in which you intend to operate. If you use a trademark that is registered by another company without their permission in another country, you will be infringing their trademark and may be prevented from doing so.
Many companies believe that because a company name does not appear on the Companies House website, or the domain name is not used, it is okay to use it. This is not the case. It is the Trademark Registry in the countries where you do business that dictates who has the exclusive right to use trade names and logos, rather than whether or not a company has registered under the same name or domain name. It’s in use.
Also, once your trademark is registered, if another company requests a logo that is too similar, you can object to that other company’s request to prevent your logo from being registered.
conclusion
Instead of entering international markets and hoping for the best, it makes good business sense to determine where the risks lie with respect to the use of logos and other trade names to avoid trademark infringement in the countries in which the company operates.
It is one thing to have a strong brand and quite another to be in a position to assert the best legal rights available to protect it. International trade mark protection can be obtained through a single UK trade mark application, which applies to the whole of Europe.