A Trademark can be defined as a design, a logo, an expression or anything that resembles an organization or a product belonging to a certain person or a firm or an organization. It is also termed as “Service Marks” sometimes. The very basic breakdown of the term would mean that any kind of mark that distinctly recognizes its owner. So, if you’re a businessman, then you definitely need to come up with a unique and catchy trademark that embeds into people’s minds. Let us look at 7 reasons why trademarks are important to your business:
1.) It gives uniqueness to a brand: Consider trademark as a Logo of your brand. Would you want to have a logo that stands out, is easy to remember and is catchy or would you rather go for a logo that is hard to remember or understand and doesn’t describe your brand in any way? The choice would be simple and everyone would go for the former option. It is self-explanatory why you would want that.
2.) Sets a brand apart from the crowd: A trademark should be unique for a brand. Let us take our example of assuming logo as a trademark once again. If your logo is unique, simple– basically it has everything mentioned above, then it gives your brand an edge over anyone else. With a logo, anyone can tell which brand does a product belongs to. When you see a silver color half bitten apple on a laptop or a phone, you know that it is an Apple product.
3.) Protects your product’s name: If you have a registered trademark, you can use it to publically show your ownership over your product. Having a registered trademark will give you a right to use it on all the products registered under your ownership and hence prove that the product belongs to you and you have all the rights to sell, modify or use that product however you want.
4.) Trademark stays forever: Your registered Trademark will remain with you forever. So, it is like buying an ice cream once and eating it forever. However, ice cream won’t last that long- don’t even try to do that, please!.
5.) Protects your Brand’s name: As mention throughout this article, you should register your trademark so as to stop anyone else from using it. But, what if there’s another company with the same name as yours? Is there any way to stop it? As a matter of fact, there is. It is widely suggested that you register your brand’s name as your trademark. This way, if anyone else uses the similar name as yours, you can stop them.
6.) Trademarks can be valuable: What if I told you that your trademark can be valuable? Over the time when your business grows, your trademark’s value goes up as well. So, if you and your business are doing great, so is your trademark.
7.) A trademark helps your business grow: Let’s say if you have a company that deals in the computers. But, after some successful hard work, you want to expand your company and want to jump in the audio hardware business as well. If you’re a nobody, there are high chances that you will fail. But, if you’re a known business and have a known trademark, then people can trust your brand no matter what field you are expanding in.
Having a registered trademark can take you places, literally. When you rack up all these points together and put your head to it, you will see that this can drastically help your business get some serious recognition. You will have an open ownership on all the products you make or own. You can literally stamp your trademark on your goods. Yes, that’s allowed.
If you still don’t believe in the power of a registered trademark, you should read the “Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft” case. It is a hilarious case- but, it shows what a trademark can do for you. The gist of that whole case would be that the software giant Microsoft sued the 12th-grade Canadian student because of his website named “mikerowesoft.com”. According to microsoft, mike’s website phonetically resembled their brand. In the end, a conclusion was reached by both the parties and the case settled down. But, microsoft was able to get the control of that website with a little compensation and stopped that website and got their brand’s uniqueness back.