Other related rights

Besides trade mark registrations, there are other ways to protect the signs which you use to label your products.  We can advise on which might be appropriate for your business.

Firstly, simply by using a trade mark you start to acquire certain "common law" rights in it.  These are automatic; you don't need to apply to the Trade Marks Registry for them.  You can use them in a similar way to trade mark registrations, to stop others adopting confusingly similar marks.  A registration, however, is generally stronger and easier to sue under.

Aside from these common law, unregistered trade mark rights, you may also be able to supplement the protection of a trade mark by registering it as a company name and/or as an internet domain name (although please note that neither of these can on its own give you trade mark protection).  You may well have copyright in logos, pictures, stylised forms of trade mark wording, packaging styles, slogans and almost certainly in advertising copy.  It is now possible for design registrations to be used to obtain a form of trade mark protection, particularly if you use a combination of shape and pattern to distinguish your products.

The law can also be used to protect marks which indicate a particular geographical origin.

In certain cases you can register a mark even for products you don't use it on, if it's become sufficiently famous that the public would always think of your business when they saw it.