You would be surprised by the value of even modest brands, which may be worth millions of dollars. These assessments are based on the value they provide to the company. Great brands enjoy continuous word-of-mouth promotion, may fetch higher pricing, and can even generate royalties by licensing the name to another party. You must register your trademark to grant rights and do other things.
What if other companies started using this brand name without your consent, leaving you with no choice except to file a protracted lawsuit that may take years to conclude? Surely, it shouldn’t happen. This is where registering a trademark online may help. It is not at all required. However, possessing one guarantees that the phrase, symbol, or slogan you have trademarked is completely under your control.
Additionally, if you’ve registered the trademark, it will be simple to prove your legal rights in court, saving you time and money on legal bills. Not yet persuaded? Let’s go over the three primary reasons why your brand could be harmed in the absence of a registered trademark.
Drawbacks of Not Registering Your Trademark
- Lose Rights to Name
If you don’t register your brand as a trademark, another company may choose the same name and register it. If this occurs, the other company can try to prevent you from using the name even if you were using it before them. Now that trademark rules recognize the first user of the trademark, you may still be able to keep your rights to the name even after spending a lot of money on legal expenses.
However, since trademark rights are territorial, the courts may divide the rights to the name by region of operation unless you’ve been operating across the Philippines. As a result, the other company would have more coverage under the brand if it had been operating under the name in a bigger region of the Philippines. On the other hand, you wouldn’t have this issue if you had registered the name sooner.
- Cause Confusion Among Consumers
Owners of trademarks have the right to object to new trademarks similar to their own. As an illustration, Satyam Infoway Ltd successfully convinced the courts to reject Siffynet Solutions Pvt Ltd because it would cause consumer confusion. Those who have not registered their trademarks are not eligible for this protection.
As a result, another company with a similar name would have every right to exist in the Philippines (and even to trademark the name), which might lessen the prominence of your brand if the other company is more successful. It might not even be feasible to take legal action in this situation.
- Cybersquatting Troubles
Do you know how many different ways your domain name might be used? 100s, for sure. And an entire business is built around the simple purchasing and selling of profitable domain names. It is so widespread that a Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy was created to address it (UDRP). Without a trademark, it might be more difficult to convince the UDRP or the courts that the different domain combinations (such as example.co.uk or example.biz) violate your company’s rights. But when you have a trademark, it’s really simple to accomplish.
For instance, Marks & Spencer, which operates as marks-and-spencer.co.uk, even stopped a domain registrar from selling the domain name marksandspencer.com.
You can see that the absence of a trademark has repercussions in all three situations mentioned above. If any of these occur, you will need to act fast to register your trademark, retain legal counsel, and invest time and energy in resolving the situation. However, these issues will be far less severe and undoubtedly less expensive with a trademark. Therefore, while it is unnecessary to register a trademark before your firm has acquired any momentum, you should do it as soon as your venture begins to show potential.