For any organization, trademarks are important brand assets. In a congested market, they assist separate your services and products from your rivals by building consumer associations with your business and its reputation.
Establishing and Protecting your trademarks earlier is crucial for entrepreneurs. Otherwise, you face the danger of having a lot of problems later.
Here are some key details concerning trademarks that prospective business owners should be aware of.
Your company name is not always your trademark:
You most likely had to register a corporate name under which you would be conducting business as part of the incorporation procedure for your business.
A corporate name that has been authorized as part of the incorporation procedure entitles your firm to use that name to do business in the province or territory where the name is registered or, if registered under federal law, all throughout the country.
You would have also required to register the latter as a “business” or “trade” name if your corporate name is different from the name of your firm as it appears to your consumers.
The use of your name as a trademark is not covered by any of these registrations, so keep that in mind. You must submit an application to register your mark with the intellectual property office in the countries where you conduct business in order to be granted the only right to use your name as a trademark.
The Importance of Registration:
The registration of trademarks may not initially be viewed as a high priority by some young businesses. Companies could be hesitant to spend the money because they do not yet have a reputation to uphold and because they have a limited amount of financial resources. If you’ve done your research, you could believe that the common law will enough to defend your trademark.
Federal trademark registration is not necessary for protection in either Canada or the US. In both nations, you may depend on your use of the mark to prove your ownership of it even if no official registration has been made. Nevertheless, you need to be aware of the important benefits that registered marks have over unregistered marks.
The burden of proving the validity of the mark and the extent of the claimed rights is greater when protecting unregistered markings than when doing so. It is simpler to establish a right to and defend registered marks.
The initial cost of trademark registration will be negligible in light of future legal costs incurred should you need to assert an unregistered mark.
File your Trademark before using it:
You don’t have to wait to file for a trademark until you’re really utilizing your desired mark. And you have a choice of two grounds for submitting a trademark application in the Malaysia. You can submit a trademark application on the grounds that you are already using the mark commercially or that you intend to do so.
Although you can begin the procedure by stating your intention to use the mark, you must show that you have actually used the mark before it can go forward to registration.
The Choice of a Trademark is Limited:
You may already be aware that you cannot register a mark that is currently being used by another party for identical or related products or services.
However, you should also keep in mind a few extra restrictions on register ability while you think about your trademark. Regardless of their availability outside, some words, phrase combinations, or images won’t be available for registration.
For example, you cannot register a Trademark in Malaysia that consists of a name or surname, a term in a foreign language, or a phrase or picture that is identical to a forbidden mark. A mark that is clearly descriptive is another one you cannot register. A mark that is clearly descriptive specifies a quality of the products or services it is intended to be used with.
The Limits of Infringement Are Not Exact Reproduction:
The chance that your mark may be confused for someone else’s is another crucial thing to consider before adopting a specific mark. In addition to having a negative impact on your company’s success and image, this might also render you accountable to the other party for trademark infringement.
Saying that the trademark you’re using isn’t identical to a trademark currently in use is not sufficient to avoid infringement charges. The owner of a registered trademark has the right to sue you for trademark infringement if you use a mark that is confusingly similar to their registered mark in addition to being able to sue you for using the exact same mark.
