A trademark is a word or symbol that distinguishes your product or service from others in the market. A strong trademark makes customers identify the goods or services offered by the company. A trademarked product can help protect the product from being used without permission of the owner. A lawyer can offer to create a strong trademark and help in trademark registration UAE. A trademark recognizes the company’s ownership of a brand.
Importance of Distinctiveness in a Trademark
The most vital feature of a trademark is Distinctiveness. A trademark allows the public to identify the goods or services of a company through the trademarked brand. The trademark must be ‘distinctive’ to help differentiate the goods and services of one brand from others, as well as a distinctive mark, protects the trademark from theft and infringement.
What are types of Trademarks?
- Generic Mark – A generic mark is not consider as a trademark. It is allow to used freely by everyone in commerce. A generic mark is a name or symbol by which the public commonly uses to describe a product or service category. For instance, the term ‘CAR’ to be trademarked for an automobile will be considered generic.
- Descriptive Mark – A descriptive mark may use to describe a quality, feature, ingredient, or the purpose of the good or service. These marks may fail to acquire distinctiveness unless it has a secondary meaning. This secondary meaning can be in the form of the long-term usage of the particular mark or the volume of sales, to name a few. These trademarks can protect once the public identifies the brand to the product.
- Suggestive Mark – Suggestive marks, ‘suggest’ rather than describes a quality or feature of the product or service. These marks try to indirectly describe the product’s quality to attract customers towards their product. These marks are consider a stronger mark than a Generic or Descriptive mark.
- Arbitrary Mark – An arbitrary mark may consist of an already existing real word that has no obvious connection, directly or indirectly with the product. These marks also receive strong protection and are a legally good trademark.
- Fanciful Mark – A fanciful mark is the strongest mark that originally made by assembling different words. These marks are known inherently distinctive as no such mark existed previously. These marks are design for being a trademarked brand but have no precise definition attached to them.
What are the factors that influence the selection of the type of Trademarks?
- Customer’s perspective – It is essential to create a trademark that is suitable for the products and services your company offers. The trademark should target the audience that would invest in your product. Understanding the customer’s perspective helps the company to formulate a strong trademark that can be beneficial in the long run.
- Trademark Protection level – There is an inevitable risk when selecting a trademark for your brand. The risk involve is primarily associate with whether the consumers able to remember your brand while purchasing a product. Thus, a trademark must be such that can establish an image into the consumer’s mind.
- Marketing strategies – Marketing plays a key role in promoting a product in the market. By using various marketing strategies, the product or service can gain acceptance in the market and make the public aware of the particular brand.
What are the Benefits of creating a strong Trademark?
- Successful trademark application – If a unique and distinctive trademark formed, the fewer chances of it being flagged for similarity. The registration of a strong trademark takes lesser time than that of a weakly formed trademark.
- Protection of your mark after approval – If a strong trademark formulated, it reduces claims brought against your trademark after receiving an approval to use the mark. This ensures long-term usage and protection of the mark in the market.
- Improve the market position – Trademarks seeks to avoid confusion among consumers and helps them to recognize and purchase the products and services of a particular brand in the market. In addition, Strong trademarks make the public aware of the brand and its unique qualities.
Maintaining the Mark: Trademark Protection
- Trademark protection preserves the mark from counterfeiting and infringements.
- Trademark protection requires you to use the mark in operations continuously.
- Marks such as ‘TM’ for Trademark and ® for Federally registered trademarks should used at all times.
- Always keep performing trademark searches for theft or infringement of your mark. It is beneficial to appoint a lawyer to perform the trademark search services
- Maintain your company trademark registration status active
Read More: Protection of intellectual property
Trademark Registration Services in Dubai
Farahat & Co. offers a range of Trademark services in the UAE. They help in the creation of a strong trademark and provides advice on the distinctiveness of the trademark. They also provide the service of performing trademark searches that can secure your trademark from any theft or infringement.
