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Should You Protect Your Business with a Trademark?

The ideal time to begin thinking about trademarks is before you have even launched a startup. But you can still protect intellectual property with trademarks no matter what stage your business is currently in. If you have been wondering whether you should protect your business with a trademark, the answer is a resounding yes. Here’s why.

How to Register Your Trademark

Your business name, logo, and slogans are some of the most valuable assets you own, so it is a good idea to protect your brand with a trademark. Many companies think the process of getting trademarks is complex, but it does not have to be. In fact, in today’s digital world, registering a trademark is simple.

For instance, when you use the Nominus service, experienced trademark attorneys take care of all the key steps of registration. Firstly, a trademark search report will be completed, which includes the attorney’s opinion and analysis of your possibilities for trademark registration and which potential classes your product or service belongs to. Then, the attorney files and processes the application with the Trademark Office and handles all of the necessary formalities. When your trademark application is approved, you receive a certificate of registration. Simple!

Every Brand Needs Protection

Of course, registering a trademark involves spending funds. But it can be less expensive than you think. More importantly, there are many good reasons for protecting your brand, including saving you huge potential costs in the future.

Whether you’re looking for trademark registration in south africa or any country for your business, the most essential reasons are: if you do not protect your brand with trademarks, it leaves your business open to lawsuits from companies who have registered similar names, slogans, and designs. That could result in having to give up your entire brand and starting all over again.

Just as important is the fact that a trademark protects you against other companies using similar names and designs as your own brand. If your intellectual property is not protected, it will be considerably more difficult to win a lawsuit.

Trademarks Help Your Brand to Gain Recognition

It takes a lot of time for a startup to build brand recognition. But by having things like your name, logo, and designs protected with trademarks, you can grow your brand more quickly. When customers see the trademark symbol on a name or logo, they automatically associate it with a respected and trustworthy company. In turn, that means you gain more custom.

Trademarks Are Your Greatest Assets when You Want to Expand

While protecting your intellectual property can help your startup to increase brand value, trademarks can do so even more as your business expands. How? Basically, you can incorporate your trademarked branding with your marketing strategies to enhance your brand recognition further.

Trademarks are also significantly advantageous to businesses that want to diversify their products or services or branch into franchising via licensing. For inspiration, consider how global giants like Facebook, Coca-Cola, and Mcdonald’s use their trademarked intellectual property to market and grow their businesses.

Without trademarks in place, those powerhouse companies would not have become the international success stories that they are today. One more thing: when you get to a point where you are considering selling your business, you can attain more value when you put your company up for sale if your intellectual property is protected with trademarks.

Don’t Hang Around

You should apply for a trademark as soon as possible. Consider filing on an Intent to Use basis, which means you are not ready for your trademark but plan to use it in the near future. By doing that, it means you do not risk having another company registering a similar trademark. If that were to happen, you would have to begin your branding again and delay your business’s launch.