Trademark watching: the watching of a trademark is essential

These days, we are insured against pretty much everything; for example against injury, burglary and theft, legal assistance, and even against defaulters. This insurance helps us to mitigate personal and business risks as much as possible. But, what about insurance for those other valuable business rights: your trademarks?

The importance of a trademark

A business’s unique name and brand reputation is its most important asset. That is what distinguishes it from its competitors in the market. Think what it would mean for your business if someone else tried to develop similar activities, using the same or a confusingly similar name? Clearly, you don’t want this to happen. But, it would be difficult for you to stop this kind of infringement if you hadn’t registered your brand name as a trademark or monitored it against conflicting registrations.

Novagraaf’s trademark watching services will enable you to compare new (conflicting) trademark registrations with your trademarks all over the world. And, the good news is that it’s fast, timely and inexpensive. You will receive a regular report from us outlining new registrations, and we will work with you to determine whether you wish to object to those registrationsor not. If you would like to know more about trademark watching, please get in touch with Novagraaf. We will talk you through the benefits of trademark watching.

The importance of watching

Trademark watching should be an essential part of an active trademark policy. You want to see in good time if competing organisations are trying to use or are already misusing your trademarks. And, to take effective action, under the current legislation, it is important to act promptly against those third parties. This applies even where companies are attempting to use brand names that are similar to yours in the same market space. After all, brands that appear to be too similar to the general public can lead to confusion; for example, if you saw a smartphone with the name HiPhone, you might confuse it with the iPhone.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that it is not possible to act against all trademark registrations that appear to use the same or a similar brand name to yours. Trademark rights only provide protection in the specified category (called ‘class’) of products and services for which the trademark is registered. In principle, it does not give the holder of a trademark the right to take action against someone who uses the same brand name for a totally different type of product. Novagraaf’s trademark watching takes this into account in its analysis.

Would you like to know more about how to protect your trademark?

If you would like to know more about trademark watching, please get in touch with Novagraaf. We will talk you through all the benefits of trademark watching. You can also turn to us with questions about trademark registration, trademark infringement and litigation. Please get in touch using the contact form at the top right of this page.

If your organisation has international ambitions and you would like to know more about this topic, please click here.