This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
The Importance of Conducting a Trademark Public Search to Avoid a Heartburn later on!
Prior research is crucial for avoiding rejections later on. Most of the times, it so happens, people choose a trademark that’s either too identical or too similar to an already existing trademark in the market.
This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
Registering a trademark is vital for the success of your brand. A lot of businesses come across issues where their company’s reputation takes a hit because the said company didn’t bother to register a trademark because they considered themselves to be in their infancy and the trademark could wait.
However, the thing is, that you are never too young to register your trademark (You can read my other article Why It's Never Too Early to Trademark Your Business to understand why I say so) and ideally you should do it while you are still in your infancy to build your brand value.
Therefore, in case, you still haven’t registered you should do so right away. However, before you venture out to register a trademark, it’s important that you do conduct a trademark public search and here’s why you should do it.
Prior research is crucial for avoiding rejections later on. Most of the times, it so happens, people choose a trademark that’s either too identical or too similar to an already existing trademark in the market. This results in objections being raised later on.
Therefore, running a thorough check is not only required, but you should consider it to be one of the most important points in your business strategy.
Moreover, trademark infringements happen all the time, even though sometimes people do so willingly; however, most of the times, it happens unknowingly, as they simply lack awareness when it comes to researching trademarks.
Point being, time spent on research is going to save you a ton of legal hassles later on. For example, I have myself seen food outlets picking a similar name to an existing more famous brand than theirs to tap into their customer base.
Think ‘Bitto Tikki Waala Vs Bunty Tikki Waala’. Short Form ’BTW’
For those of you based out of Delhi, Bitto tikki waala is a famous brand of tikki and they have a couple of outlets and they do brisk business, thanks to their loyal customer base.
Now, if Bitto Tikki Waala wasn’t trademarked (It is trademarked BTW: See image below) and Bunty tikki waala were to start using the similar name and logo, wouldn’t you get confused? Would there be any way to differentiate between the two? I guess not.
Source:
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You might think that I am drifting away from the title of this article; however, I am not. I just wanted to highlight as to how easy it is to infringe upon a brand if it’s not trademarked. And if you don’t want to infringe you should always conduct a public search for trademarks before filing your trademark application leaving no open windows for any kinds of violations.