In order to safeguard ones brand name or logo, it’s important that it’s trademarked. To carry out the same you need to register your trademark in whichever country your business is residing. Once registered you have full authority over it and you can include the R symbol against your brand. Moreover you can take action against anyone who tries to make use of your brand name, service or logo. You can even sell and license your brand.
This article will brief you in detail as to how to register a business trademark in the UK. Follow the steps given below:
- Perform a check on your brand for the trademark
You need to perform a check on the following things before you actually apply for the trademark
- The trademark can have a combination of words, colours, logos or sound.
- It should not include any offensive word or image
- The trademark should not be exactly similar to the brand or service you provide. For example you can’t have a shoe trademark for a footwear company.
- The trademark should not be erroneous or misleading.
- It cannot be of 3D shape
- It should not be relevant to any of the state symbol
- It must not be very common.
- In case you want to apply for similar versions of your trademark, you can maker series application for six marks. Ensure that all the marks have the same meaning, same appearance and sounds the same.
- It’s extremely important to check whether your trademark has been already registered or not. Perform a check on the registered trademark and then only proceed further to apply for it. In case it already exists, you need to get a letter of consent from the concerned company and submit along with your application. For performing the search on trademark, you can either use trademark number, owner name or any keyword or image.
- Apply and register for your trademark
Once you have decided upon your trademark you need to apply for it either online or by post. For this you’ll require all the details of the registered trademark along with which trademark classes you are opting for registration. Also note that once you apply for registering a trademark, you won’t be able to change it. The fees are non-refundable. Also at least one of the trade mark owners or their representative, must have a postal address within the European Economic Area (EEA). If you want to check whether your application complies with all the registration rules, you can avail the ‘Right Start’ service.
Click here to apply to register a trade mark
- Post application
- After you successfully applied for your trademark, within a period of 20 days you’ll be getting feedback on your application, referred to as the examination report. Within a period of 2 months you need to resolve all the issues (if any).
- If there is no objection from the examiner, your application gets published in the trade journal. Here it will reside for about 2 months and will any sort of objection from anyone will be observed.
In case of any objection, you have the option to either defend your application, withdraw your application or communicate with the person causing the objection. Until the objection is not resolved you cannot process ahead with the registration process.
- If there are no objections or if all the objections are resolved, you’ll be receiving a certificate of confirmation.
Costs for applying to register the trademark
You need to pay $100 as an initial cost and to include additional classes you must pay $50 for each. Once you pay, you’ll be intimated via report regarding whether your application meets the rules or not. Thereafter you need to pay the entire amount within a period of 14 days of receiving the report. It gives the provision of continuing your application even if you don’t meet the registration rules.
It takes about 4 months for the registration process to get completed without any objection. Once registered, the trademark lasts for about 10 years.
