Is a faster trademark registration better?
Zipip’s Method
Zipip works to achieve the fastest possible registration of your trademark. This is why Zipip’s Norwegian applications in 2021 on average were registered within 20 days, compared to an industry average of 150 days.
But does this matter? Why is a swift registration better?
Clarity, Early On
The best way to ensure the freedom to use your intended mark, is by registering it.
With a swift registration, you avoid unpleasant surprises late in your branding process, demanding expensive changes in branding, marketing, packaging, domain names etc.
The registration gives you exclusive rights to the trademark, and confirmation from an impartial third party that no older rights will block the intended use.
You are ensured your place in line the moment the application is filed, but your final confirmation is not in place until registration. Up until registration you cannot be sure unexpected obstacles to use or registration won’t arise, nor that the trademark authorities won’t claim the mark lacks distinctiveness. This makes an early registration key.
Safe Enforcement
To stop others from using your trademark, you need to establish rights to the mark through:
· Registration; or
· Aquired Distincitveness from use.
Acquired distinctiveness from use is uncertain and expensive to enforce. Before you can enforce your right, you must prove that the mark is in fact know as a trademark for you as the commercial entity. This it can be dificult to prove.
Some, such as Amazon brand services, will acknowledge submitted applications as intermediate proof of your rights. However, to legally enforce your rights, a confirmed registration is always the best tool.
Safe Expansion Abroad
Your national application can be used as a basis for further registrations in other countries and regions within 6 months of application.
The applications in new regions will then be considered as filed at the same time as the original national application.
A quick registration of your national application, provides you with security and clarity before the original application is expanded abroad.
With the industry average of about 5 months to registration, many applications will have passed the 6-month deadline to extending the application abroad before the registration is in place.
You may file the extensions before registration, but you then run the riskthat unresolved problems with the original application is transferred to other regions.
By ensuring registration before the expansion, you ensure that the goods and services, as well as other formalities, are in order. This way, such issues do not need to be addressed again in every extension.
Focus
Zipip takes care of your trademarks, so that you can focus on other tasks. However, even with the application safely underway, this will often remain an open task in your mind until the registration has landed.
An early registration lets you close the loop earlier to free up focus for other more relevant tasks.
Is Faster Always Better?
No, faster is not always better. Sometimes the optimal strategy demands more time.
This will typically be the case when an application is refused based on an older registration that has not yet entered the five-year use-requirement. Here, it may be preferable to keep the application alive until the cited older mark enters the use-requirement, opening the door to negotiate a consent, or file a non-use cancelation.
Hi!
You have just read a text from Zipip.
Please subscribe to Zipip’s newsletter for regular updates.
Securing intellectual property (IP) can seem expensive and confusing. Guidance from professionals can feel like a sales pitch, and solutions are complicated and expensive.
This is why I started Zipip – Our services let you build and own your competitive advantages safely, with predictable low costs.
Automated where possible, tailored where needed.
Feel free to read more about me and Zipip’s philosophy.