Exploiting your trade mark rights

Your trade mark rights (both registered and unregistered) are items of property.  They can appear as assets on your balance sheet.  You can sell them or even mortgage them.

You can also grant licences under them, allowing other people to use your trade marks usually in return for a royalty or other type of payment.  Franchise arrangements often involve this type of trade mark licence.  It's important that you maintain effective control over somebody else's use of your marks, however, to ensure that the public are not misled as to the quality or origin of the products.

Alternatively you may want to use your trade marks to protect your own activities, keeping competitors away whilst you establish yourself an exclusive position in the market place.  A trade mark is of course a powerful way of creating and maintaining customer loyalty.

Remember that if you have protection for a mark that others want access to, you can use it as a bargaining chip in all your commercial negotiations.  It can also help you to attract and reassure investors.

Be aware however of the limitations of trade mark rights.  They do not guarantee you a source of income – it's up to you to exploit your marks effectively.  Nor do they guarantee you freedom to use your marks; you could still be infringing the rights in someone else's trade marks even if you've registered your own.  Also, it's up to you to identify, and take legal action against, those who infringe your rights.  And their validity can always be challenged, possibly resulting in their loss, especially if you fail to use a trade mark enough.