Trademark

An indication of origin and a reputation for quality are the core messages of a trademark. It is a brand that identifies and individualizes your goods and services and therefore you must have a monopoly right to it, because every cent you invest in marketing and advertising and every quality service you provide to your customers ends up in the goodwill of your trademark. And only you should be allowed to benefit from this, not imitators and product pirates!

A trademark in the sense of trademark law is a sign - for example a word sign, a figurative sign or a combination thereof or a sequence of sounds ("jingle") - that is capable of referencing to a specific commercial business. You can obtain trademark protection by registering your mark for selected goods and services with the relevant trademark office or, in exceptional cases, through use if the mark has acquired a reputation or if it is well known. The usual and most reliable way to obtain trademark protection is trademark registration.

Register your trademark before someone else does - there is no general right of prior use for trademarks in Germany or in the majority of other European countries!

Company identification mark

In addition to registered trademarks, there is also protection acquired through use of company identification marks. These are marks that are used in the conduct of business as a name, as a company or as a special designation of a business or an enterprise.

Title protection

As work titles, labels for printed matter, film works, sound works, stage works or other comparable works are protected. This protection of work titles, also known as title protection, arises from use or proclamation.

Geographical indications of origin

Geographical Indications of origin can also be protected under the German Trade Mark Act and EU Regulations.

Internet domain names

Closely related to trademark protection is the protection of Internet domain names, as these often contain elements that are also protected by trademark law.

From brainstorming to branding

A sign that is to be registered as a trademark must be distinctive. This means that, in principle, it must be capable of identifying the business activities of a company. Furthermore, it must not be a sign that has to be held available for competitors and must not infringe the rights of third parties. These criteria should be taken into account when developing a trademark. That is why we advise you in this phase of creating a trademark and in conducting searches for you for existing earlier trademarks.

Thereafter, we work with you to draw up the list of goods and services for which the trademark is to be protected, apply for registration of the trademark with the relevant office on your behalf and represent your interests until the trademark is registered.

Trademark protection domestic and abroad

Trademark protection is granted at the national, regional and international level. If you also require protection for your trademarks outside your home country, we will work with you to determine your territorial trademark protection needs and develop a trademark strategy abroad that is also suitable for you from a budgetary perspective. We will then take care of registering your trademark with the relevant offices and coordinate any foreign proceedings.

Trademark protection is granted at the national, regional and international level. For trademark protection abroad, transnational regional and international trademark protection systems are available, for example, an European Union trademark or an International Trademark registration, known as an "IR" trademark.

If you need protection for your trademark outside your home country, we will work with you to determine your territorial trademark protection needs and develop a filing strategy for foreign countries that is also suitable for you from a budgetary perspective. We then take care of the registration of your trademark with the respective office and coordinate any national foreign proceedings. We can either carry out the corresponding registration proceedings for you directly or we can work with foreign colleagues from our global network and coordinate the foreign proceedings in close consultation with you.

Post-registration trade mark management

After the registration of your trademark, we monitor the due dates for the renewal of your trademark and remind you of upcoming deadlines for fee payment and proof of use. We also take over the payment processing for the renewal fees in Germany and abroad.

If you wish, we can also monitor your trademark for collisions, in order to detect in an early stage whether younger trademark applications are confusingly similar to your trademark, so that you can then take action against the registration of such trademarks. You can use our IP management service to manage your trademark portfolio.

As your external IP department, we can not only manage your IP portfolio for you, but also unburden you of other related tasks, so that you can concentrate on your core business.