Lunch and Learn: How to protect your brand

In this Lunch and Learn, chartered trademark and design attorney Laura West provides an overview of why your brand's intellectual property (IP) is so important, and how you can make sure you're protecting yours.

Topics covered in this session

• What IP is and why you should care

• DIY IP: How to help yourself and where to draw the line

• How much it costs to protect your brand, and how you can make your (even limited) budget work for you

Laura's key points from the webinar

Brand protection

• Conduct thorough due diligence before filing a trademark application to make sure your brand name is available and not infringing on existing rights. You can use the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in the UK and TMVIEW internationally to search for similar marks.

• Use TMclass to identify relevant goods and services for your trademark application, drilling down into specific categories to ensure accurate coverage.

• Assume that third parties creating work for your business own the rights – unless there's an explicit assignment to your company. Always get confirmation when rights have been transferred.

Managing IP assets

• Identify your business's IP assets and create a plan to protect them, with budgeting and forecasting.

• Add IP protection to your business plan, even if it's not an immediate priority. This will help make sure you've considered its importance and decided when to implement it.

• Register trademarks to protect brand names, logos and identifiers. The price starts at around £170 for UK protection. Build unregistered goodwill rights through consistent market presence.

Design and copyright

• Register designs for logos, packaging, product shapes and software interfaces for £50, but be aware of the 12-month filing window from public use.

• Protect artistic works like logos with copyright, which is automatic from creation but requires recordkeeping to prove ownership.

Applying for a trademark

• When filing a trademark application, carefully designate categories of goods and services, as you won't be able to make changes once the application is filed.

• Consider trademark protection in a number of territories – starting with the UK – to build a strong international brand presence.

Using IP to grow your business

• Use trademark and design registration to increase your brand's value over time, potentially using it as security for loans or generating revenue through licensing and franchising.

• Protect trade secrets and technical inventions to maintain your competitive edge and uniqueness in the market.

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