Importance of Registering Your Trademark

You have just started a new business and your topmost concern is making a workable business plan along with having enough capital to make it work. But one of the most important things that you are missing on right now is registering your trademark. It’s not uncommon for people to neglect the fact that they are going to need a symbol or logo to represent their company or product. Registering your trademark is a way to ensure that a specific business name, logo or services associated with your business remain unique.

When you work hard to build a successful business, you want to attract new as well as retain existing clients. A particular name or logo helps your clients to identify your business and the goodwill that goes with it. In fact, as clients have neither your acquaintance nor knowledge of your business, the only thing they can associate with is your trademark. Since goodwill of your clients depends on the trademark you use, it becomes important for any business to protect that trademark and check your rivals from using it to make money out of it.

When a rival uses a single name or logo to sell his products, he harms your business directly as well as indirectly. When he uses your goodwill in the market to sell his ware, the loss is more direct. A customer sees a familiar logo and makes the purchase, as he has no way of knowing whether they belong to you or not. But greater harm can come indirectly when your competitor passes off inferior quality goods under a similar logo or name. When the customer gets a raw deal he is likely to share it with others and it ends up tarnishing your image unnecessarily. So despite all your hard work, good marketing strategy, and stringent quality control, you still fail to make any headway because you neglected to get your trademark from being registered in the beginning.

Using a trademark by displaying it on products as a hologram or while rendering a service is enough to protect it under the common law without you doing anything else. However, this security remains limited to the specific geographical area where you operate your business from. In other words, any other individual or organisation can use the same logo and name as yours in other areas. In case you want to expand your business in those areas at some point of time, it would not be possible for you to keep doing so. Keeping the future prospects in view, it is important to protect your goodwill by registering your trademark.

After registering a trademark, your rivals are duly notified about your use of that trademark and it is enough to prevent them from claiming that they used it in good faith. In case of infringement, you are in a position to claim profits, damages and costs besides the attorney’s fee in infringement actions. Your registration can be used as a basis for filing registration in other countries and filed with the customs service to avert import of foreign goods that infringe your trademark. And it just takes five years for your trademark to become incontestably yours.