The importance of trade mark use

The more you use your trade mark the stronger it becomes, legally as well as commercially.  Failure to use a registered trade mark, or properly to control its use, can in fact result in the registration becoming invalid.  Even failure to use a mark on particular goods, or in a particular geographical region, can make a registration partially invalid.

To safeguard your rights, use your trade mark as extensively as you can.  Keep tight controls over the quality of the products sold under it; this is especially important if you are licensing others to use the mark.  Try also to "police" your trade mark rights – if you see others using a confusingly similar mark in your part of the market, seek legal advice and if resources allow, take action to stop them.

Whenever you use your mark, make sure the public know it's yours.  Mark it as ™, or if it's registered as ®.  State on your packaging, product literature and company documents that "XXX is a trade mark of YYY Ltd".

We also recommend that you keep dated records of this use, in case you ever need to prove it took place.  Keep copies of documents which carry the trade mark, notes of marketing costs and lists of publications in which you advertised.  Sometimes this "evidence of use" will help you to register a mark which might otherwise have been rejected as insufficiently distinctive.  It may also be crucial if you need to sue anyone under your "common law" (ie, unregistered) rights.