Monitoring is an imperative step in preserving what we value. For instance, homeowners secure their houses with cameras and banks monitor credit cards to prevent fraud. Similarly, when a company owns a registered trademark, monitoring it to prevent its unauthorized use by other businesses is indispensable. Trademark monitoring protects brand reputation in several ways, including the prevention of trademark dilution.
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What is Trademark Monitoring?
Businesses understand the significance of registering trademarks in regions where they manufacture, distribute and trade their products. However, registering a trademark is only the first step in the long journey of trademark enforcement. Trademark monitoring protects brand reputation and allows businesses to keep a track of trademark registries and detect applications that can infringe their registered trademark.
Several companies outsource this leg of IP protection to third-party IP service providers who employ highly-skilled professionals for trademark monitoring. A brand gets recognition by its trademark. So, here’s how trademark monitoring protects brand reputation of a client.
Prevents Trademark Dilution
Neglecting monitoring can weaken trademark with time – the phenomenon is called trademark dilution. It occurs when a business copies the trademark of your client or uses a confusingly similar mark. In such a case, the trademark no longer remains unique to the product offered by your client.
The phenomenon works by impacting the consumer psyche. Customers fail to relate the mark with the business it represents, enabling other companies to make unauthorized use of the same mark. Moreover, businesses can file a petition to cancel your trademark. This may happen on the grounds of inadequate policing of the marketplace that allowed your trademark to dilute out in the first place. Aspirin, Xerox, Kerosene were all previously strong trademarks that have now become generic due to trademark dilution. So, it is extremely important to be vigilant and monitor your client’s trademark regularly.
For instance, in the famous Disney vs Stephan Huber case, the latter a legal soup for having a domain name – “shopdisney.eu” – similar to that of The Walt Disney Company. The World Intellectual Property (WIPO) panel ruled in favor of Disney as the domain name was confusingly similar to the Disney brand.
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Prevent Loss of Face
A competing business may use a client’s trademark or a mark that is similar to it. This may provide products or services of inferior quality where your client’s brand reputation may likely take a hit. This can lead to legal hassle if the competing business which copies your trademark shows interest in illegal activities. Thus, you must track the marketplace to make sure that no one uses your client’s trademark to offer questionable services.
Efficient trademark monitoring empowers a client to file for cancellation of the confusingly similar mark. One must do this before the situation gets out of hand. Moreover, monitoring ensures timely intervention. It gets harder to oppose a plagiarized trademark as the competitor moves forward with the registration. The highly-skilled professionals in the trademark search domain detect these conflicting applications at an early stage.
Also Read: US Trademark Search – How to do TM Search Easily?
Allows Brand Expansion
Prominent brands are more likely to bear the brunt of trademark plagiarism. However, that does not imply that small businesses do not need to monitor their service mark. Trademark monitoring allows a client to expand their ideas in a free and flexible fashion.
A client may register his trademark in a domain that is currently of low value and priority. However, trademark monitoring preserves the possibility of changes in the future. Moreover, it ensures that you reap maximum benefits when the brand gets popular. Trademark monitoring will keep your client’s investments protected and help them to outwit their competition.
Also Read: Top 10 Use Cases of Trademark Availability Search and Cost
Conclusion
If a client has a huge trademark portfolio, it would have voluminous monitoring data. It will not only be time-consuming to monitor this data but can also result in missing the important information. Therefore, you must first define the scope of the trademark monitoring work. Then, you must sift through the data for optimum results. Trademark monitoring is an important facet of IP protection. Thus, you must execute it diligently to protect the brand reputation of a business.
TMReady offers significant state-of-art trademark watch services to its clients across the globe. These services allow brands to keep an eye out for trademark infringement globally and within the regions of operation. Our dedicated team enables customers to protect their valuable brand reputation.
-The Editorial Team
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