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Trademark Registration
Everyone in business should think about trade marks. While you are building customer value in the name that you are using, at the same time you are potentially infringing on the trade mark rights that belong to someone else.
Your own brand is a valuable asset for advertising and customer repeat business. Avoid future legal costs, protect your brand and your customer recognition by securing your trade mark.
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Frequently asked questions
A good trade mark is new and distinctive. The newness means that it has not previously been used or registered in Australia for similar goods or services. Distinctiveness refers to the ability of the trade mark to stand out from ordinary words that might be used to describe the goods or services. A trade mark word may allude to features of the goods, but not directly describe the goods or services. Otherwise it is likely to be rejected.
A word type of trade mark will protect that word in a range of fonts, styles and formats, whereas a logo trade mark will only cover the word in the style that is included in the logo.
The cost of filing an application for a trade mark includes: the government fee for approved goods; professional attorney oversight to ensure that the application is correctly made; monitoring and forwarding you the examination report or early acceptance notification; guidance on how to overcome examination rejections; forwarding you the certificate of registration; acting as the address for service in Australia; maintaining records on your behalf.
Yes! It is a requirement that a trade mark not be similar to an existing trade mark that is either used or registered in Australia.
A trade mark application in Australia will take about 2 months to be examined or about 1–2 weeks if you request expedited examination. If examination is successful you may get early acceptance, otherwise you will receive an adverse examination report. If successful, there is a waiting period for international applications and your application will be advertised after about 5 and a half months from the date of application. This starts a 2-month period of open advertisement to allow for any oppositions. If there are no oppositions your trade mark will be registered after 7.5 months. If the trade mark examiner raises objections then you will have 15 months within which to place your application in order for acceptance.
No, the application fee is non-refundable.
If you have been trading in Australia, and you discover that someone else has applied for registration of the same trade mark then you may lodge an opposition against their application during the 2-month opposition period. If the opposition period has ended and you believe that they are not legitimately planning to use the trade mark then you may raise an objection on the grounds that they have no intention to use the trade mark in good faith.
• Search to ensure that your trademark is new and there are no similar trademarks already on the register before you apply.
• Use the pick list to ensure that the goods and services fall within the classes.
• Select a trade mark that is inherently distinctive and does not use words ordinarily used in relation to the goods or services.
• Apply for expedited examination if you have a genuine business reason for an early outcome.
The advantage of having a registered trade mark is that you have enforceable rights to prevent copycats using your name. Your registered trade mark will also be cited by trade mark examiners against any new applications that are similar.
An Australian or New Zealand trade mark application can be used as a basis to file applications in many other countries around the world.
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