Most common mistakes during trademark registration

Businesses do not tolerate actions which may harm their individuality and brand representation because it involves a lot of investment, time and effort. Due to which, all the brands register for their trademark to protect themselves from trademark infringement.

Your trademark can be anything, smell, color, sound, sign, whatever makes your brand unique. However, there are some mistakes that people usually make while registering for the trademark.

No generic words, Please

The most common reason why small brands fail to register their trademark successfully is the generic words, you must not use generic words as your trademark. Trademark is supposed to be distinct and unique, you can’t name your chocolate business as chocolate. In fact, the trademark experts say that non-distinct or generic trademarks tends to fail in court. So, make sure that your trademark is not something common and it represents your nature of the business.

Understand the basics

“TM” symbol is called the common law trademark and thus, its authority and protection are limited to your current geographic area or the sector where your company operates. If a company applies for the very same trademark as you but under federal protection, then it will have the full domestic authority over it. Whereas, your brand will be restricted and left to hang on the legal hassle in the future for continued usage. Thus, you must get it registered immediately.

Further, if you are planning to expand your business in the future, do not register for the common law trademark as it does not extends across the border.

Trademark ownership is important

Another common mistake startups do while registering is not deciding the ownership of the trademark. So let me ask you, is your company’s trademark in your name or your attorney’s? or a third party? Sort it out! If it's not sorted as yet, because there may be a problem in the future while selling the company or its trademark. People tend to fight over who will get paid for the ownership.

Make sure that your trademark is in your name and it's effectively protected.

Do not assume

I don’t understand why they do it? But I have seen many small companies getting sued over this silly mistake. Perhaps, they overestimate their registered trademark and assume that it will cover all their services and products, no matter they are owned by someone else.

Although, it is a general understanding that if you have registered your trademark for a particular class, you cannot enforce it against some other class of products and services.

You can only exercise your trademark on the related products and services in a way that it creates confusion in the consumer mind. For instance, FedEx corp, FedEx services, FedEx express etc.

Considering, how crucial trademark has become in this era of globalization, it is very important to avoid above mentioned mistakes while registering for the trademark because it is essential to protect your logo and individual market standing.