Initial Consultation
on Trademark Protection
from Initial Consultation
to Trademark Application
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Protect your Logo Now!
Protecting your own logo as a trademark should be at the top of the agenda when starting a business. Anyone who has skipped this step urgently needs to take action.
A logo protected as a trademark prevents competitors from appearing under the same or a confusingly similar logo and thus causing confusion in the market. Trademark protection thus ensures that your company remains unique, eye-catching and easily found in the future.
Peter HarlanderHarlander & Partner Rechtsanwälte „Dieser Wettbewerbsvorteil eines markenrechtlich geschützten Logos ist nicht nur für große Brands und Labels, sondern auch für kleine Unternehmen ganz leicht leistbar.“
Trademark Protection for Logos
Harlander & Partner supports you on your way to trademark protection for your logo – at attractive flat rates.
- Optimization of your trademark strategy
- Selection of the ideal type(s) of trademark
- Selection of the appropriate Nice class(es)
- Determination of the geographical scope of protection
- Examination for grounds for refusal
- Copyright review of the logo
- Trademark similarity search
- Execution of the trademark application
- Trademark monitoring
- Resolution of trademark disputes
Are you curious about more details? Simply read on below or arrange a free initial consultation directly.
Trademark Protection Process
Trademark protection is valid for 10 years and can be extended as often as required. This incurs initial costs in the lowest four-digit range. Converted to the year, the EU-wide protection of a trademark, including legal fees and the registration fee, costs only a few hundred euros per year.
If you look at the equivalent value “EU-wide protection of your own product name”, you have to conclude that there is little for companies that is comparably inexpensive and sensible at the same time.
Trademark Law Advice
In the first step, basic preliminary questions are checked. In which classes should the trademark be protected? Is your trademark protectable at all? If so, in what form? As part of the examination of the registration requirements, it is checked, for example, whether there is a need to keep the trademark free and whether the trademark has distinctive character.
In the next step, the type of trademark is determined together with you. For example, a word mark, a figurative mark or a word/figurative mark may be considered. Each variant has advantages, but also disadvantages. In addition, the scope of protection of the trademark is determined, i.e. in which classes and in which countries the trademark is to be protected.
To select the Nice classes to be protected, we analyze the current scope of your company’s activities, but also consider with you how the company could develop in the future.
Finally, the geographical scope of protection is determined. Trademarks are most frequently registered in the EU, Austria and Germany. However, international trademark applications in Switzerland or the USA are also not uncommon.
Trademark Examination
Only when these basics have been clarified is a similarity search and the trademark analysis of the result possible. The core issue is to determine whether the trademark to be registered is confusingly similar to existing trademarks. There is extensive and multifaceted case law on the question of when there is a likelihood of confusion.
Even as a trademark law expert, you have one or two tough nuts to crack at this point. Laypersons can only arrive at the correct result by chance at this point. Depending on the outcome, the trademark analysis leads either to the approval of the registration or to the preparation of a risk assessment.
Trademark Registration
Following the trademark similarity search, the trademark application is filed. This consists of processing the registration procedure, i.e. the preparation of all documents, the filing with the responsible trademark office and the correspondence with the trademark office.
In the event of objections by third parties to the trademark application, a separate opposition procedure is initiated, in which the objections must be processed and refuted.
Trademark Monitoring
After registration of the trademark, we are happy to offer further services such as the ongoing monitoring of the trademark for infringements by third parties or ensuring the extension of your trademark in good time before the expiry of the 10-year protection period.
