- Are you looking for the best Trademark Registration Services in Australia?
- A trademark can be defined as a mark or sign used to identify goods or services handled or provided during the course of trade by an individual or organisation.
- Essentially, trademarks are used to distinguish particular goods amongst the surrounding marketplace: trademarks are identifiers and source markers.
- A trademark can be almost any form of intellectual property: words, logos, images, colours, shapes, scents, sounds, or some combination of these.
- Your trademark can be protected from infringement through trademark registration. The key to creating a registrable trademark is to ensure that your mark is unique and distinguishable amongst the wider marketplace
Trademark Registration Services
The key to creating a registrable trademark is to ensure that your mark is unique and distinguishable amongst the wider marketplace. Your trademark aims to act as a ‘badge of origin’ for the goods and services that you provide. This badge informs consumers that these particular goods and services belong to you, creating strong brand recognition and a good consumer relationship, provided that your goods and services are of a high quality.
It can be difficult to register trademarks that are purely descriptive, informed by a current trend, or similar to other marks signifying the same goods or services. Should you wish to register your trademark, you might utilise trademark registration services in order to determine whether or not your mark is suitable for registration.
There are a number of trademark registration services available to you. Each of these services can be provided by a trademark professional. The first service you might utilise is a trademark search.
Conducting a Trademark Search
Conducting a trademark search is the first step to achieving trademark registration. You should always conduct a search when you are considering a new mark for a business, company, product, or service. A trademark search aims to reveal any marks within the marketplace that are similar to your own, thereby determining trademark eligibility and reducing the risk of infringement.
Ensuring the distinctiveness of your trademark provides you with the peace of mind of knowing that you are not at risk of legal action, and it also ensures that you mark has the potential to become a business asset.
At Quick Off the Mark, trademark searches are just one of our many trademark registration services. This service, however, is one that we offer free of charge. We conduct both preliminary and comprehensive searches of Australian databases and common law resources.
Filing Your Trademark Application
Your trademark aims to distinguish the goods and services that you provide. You must be able to specify the classes of each of your goods and services within your formal trademark application. Your trademark protection only extends as far as the classes that you register in your application, so you must be careful to identify which classes your goods and services fall under.
There are a total of 45 different goods and service classes that you can register in your application. You can utilise trademark registration services to receive assistance in choosing the right class/classes.
A trademark professional can assist you in completing all of the details of your application. By enlisting the help of a professional, you gain the peace of mind of knowing that your application is filed correctly the first time, and that you won’t experience unexpected delays in the registration service due to incorrect filing.
When you employ a trademark professional to file your application, they will be listed as your agent on the record of application as your ‘address for service’. This means that any correspondence concerning your application will be sent to your trademark professional. This also means that any legal challenges by other parties will be directed to your trademark professional. This means that a professional, rather than yourself, can attend to any issues concerning your application and advise you on further action.
Application Examination
This particular trademark registration service is provided by IP Australia, the governing body for trademark registration. Once you have filed your application, an IP Australia examiner will assess your application to ensure that you have filed your application correctly, and that your trademark is eligible for registration.
Once your application has been assessed, the examiner will issue a notice of acceptance, or an adverse report.
IP Australia Adverse Report
You will receive an adverse report if the examiner raises issues with your application. These issues might include incorrect filing or similarity of other registered trademarks. You will be given a timeframe to rectify or dispute these findings. A trademark professional can assist you in responding to adverse reports in order to move your application forward to registration as quickly as possible.
Notice of Acceptance
You will be issued with a notice of acceptance if the examiner does not find issue with your application, or once your adverse report has been addressed. Once you receive a notice of acceptance, your mark will be advertised in the Official Journal of Trademarks and will enter a three-month period of opposition. This means that other trademark holders can raise concerns with your trademark such as infringement.
If you do not encounter opposition during this time, your mark will be formally registered with IP Australia.
Registration and Onwards
You will be formally registered as a trademark owner once your application has undertaken the three-month period of opposition unopposed. You can begin using the ® symbol once you received your official registration certificate.
Your trademark registration will last a period of ten years, and you may still require some trademark registration services during this time. You might like to employ a watcher service to periodically scan the market for potential infringers, or you might have your own case of counterfeiting or infringement to address. You might also like to add extra classes of goods and services as your business expands. You might even want to register additional trademarks. A trademark professional can assist you with many and more of these services. Contact us at Quick Off the Mark for further information or enquiries.
Contact Us for the Best Trademark Registration Services
BIO:
Quick Off the Mark® is a division of Mark My Words Trademark Services Pty Ltd (MMW). MMW was founded in 2011 and is headed by Jacqui Pryor, a registered trade marks attorney with more than 16 years experience.
In 2015 MMW acquired Quick Off the Mark®, which is a fast and affordable Australian trademark registration service. Quick Off the Mark® offers fixed fees that are affordable to help Australian businesses register their trademarks.
Disclaimer – The advice provided in this blog is general advice only. It has been prepared without taking into account your business objectives, legal situation or needs. Before acting on this advice you should consider the appropriateness of the advice, having regard to your own objectives, legal situation and needs.