There is a say in the world of the trademark that ‘the bigger the company, the better the chances’. Normally the magnitude of the company plays a factor in the trademark war. And not many times do the smaller companies prevail in a trademark battle. This mostly the legal power and experience the bigger companies have, which makes them walk over the smaller companies. This is called ‘Trademark Bullying’,
and this happens quite a lot to the smaller companies who really don’t understand the concept of laws of trademark registration. In the part-1 article, we saw how you will be bullied; in this article, we shall see how to overcome and avoid this type of bullying.
It’s basically simple if you made it and you genuinely registered it before anyone come up with that specific mark then the mark is yours. But some small companies when starting never concentrate on the registration part, they avoid it and that comes back to haunt them when the company or product is showing promise.
Many who use identical marks feel it will help their business but when your actual business kicks up positively, the bigger companies who you thought must have ignored you will come back to claim your productivity and sometimes even more than how much you have earned. This is considered to be a legal strategy for many big companies. So it’s just best being genuinely unique and avoid these unwanted tousles as they mostly favour the powerful as they will be ready to fight it out at court.
The main reason why the bullies tend to bully the less powered ones is that they have no idea of the trademark law and they are just afraid of the legal fight but once you take a stand for what is yours then you could shake them to your very foundation for trying to bully an emerging smaller company. Most of the cases which are lost are because after a point they get abandoned, if the trademark means anything to you, don’t abandoned.
Another thing that will help you is the NAME SEARCH option. Ask any legal advisor or trademark expert or even read any number of articles, they will all put this name search as your first step to acquire a trademark. It’s a simple process, you first think of a good name which represents value for your product or company and you just hit a name search seeing if there are any existing names registered similar to your name.
If there is then it’s safe to change or alter the name, if yours is unique even in search then there is nothing more to do then filling for the trademark. The logo is very important for your company, all of you know companies spend millions on advertising and event conducting and at these advertisements the owners of the company rarely shows up. But when you turn to every corner you can find their logo.
Companies will even leave alone names, but if logos infringe they never let it go that easily. That’s why you must take time to come up with a perfect logo. Search processes are also available to logo’s as well. There are similar to name searches too. One point very many laps in this process are in the NOC.
You will use some designer to get your logo done (if you’re the designer then just skip these lines), now once you finish your work you must take a NOC from them restricting them to claim any further fruit from there product then the one that was agreed upon. This will be useful when the designer then tries to pull you down or demand any more money on the publicity of his logo which you fully paid for.
So keep it in your mind, always take NOC for your creative works. Make your description clear on the reasons for why you chose the particular name, logo or colour for a specific product or company. Give extreme clarity on why you choose that particular mark.
On journal publication, your brand will be put on display for all the registered companies to see and oppose. If they do, experienced legal advice may be required for tackling the situation, but you will make their work tones easier if your description is proper, defending you will be much easier in such cases no matter how big the company challenging you is. Even if you come out of journal publication with your product name as aspired by you,
please see to it that the treatment is not out yet. You have just entered the sea; sharks will surround you but if you are clear that no whale can topple or bully you from what is yours then it’s certain to say that you will even come out of monstrous tornados with flying colours.
