A further service provided by Telmia is intellectual property protection or trademarking.

Existing Businesses:

This involves taking your logo or brand icon and applying to have it trademarked so that it cannot be copied and 'passed off' by competitors hoping to cash in on your established brand name. Even if you think your company name is too generic, e.g. Plumbing Warehouse, you may still have a chance at protecting the name and logo if you can prove you have an established trading history, you are a recognised name already and other important attributes to your business which we can discuss.

New Businesses:

Equally if you are looking to protect a new company logo or brand icon and are new into your market, trade marking your brand in the early days will ensure it is protected sooner rather than later when you are new and getting established.

Why would you protect your Trade Mark?

If you have a logo and it is not trademarked and you wish to franchise or license your business, for example, you will need your brand and its identity protected in the best interests of you the franchisor and any future franchisees/licensees. This is what franchisees/licencees are buying into so it must be secure.

You may have been unable to get the company name that you wanted. If this is you and you have a company name that is different to your trading name then trademarking your trading name and logo is crucial for its protection.

10 good reasons why you should register your TM:

1. To preserve your rights in your TM.

2. To gain national not just regional use of your TM on the products and services for which you application covers.

3. Registration provides public notice on a database - this should stop others accidentally using your TM and establishes a presumption of ownership.

4. It prevents similar or identical TM's being registered.

5. You get staturtory rights to sue for infringement without needing to prove a reputation in the TM.

6. Registration is a key driver for business valuation - lack of registration may reduce the value of your business.

7. Domain name disputes are more easily resolved if you own the TM.

8. As well as being a property right which can be sold or collateralised a TM can be licensed.

9. Competitors are increasingly using Google adwords to leverage off reputation and investment. Google have a complaints process to follow which is made easier by owning the TM.

10. You can object to the incorporation of a business with the same of a similar name to your TM.  

To find out more and what is involved Contact Us or make a Web Equiry today - we look forward to speaking to you.