A brief guide for brand building and protection

Trecina Surti (Novagraaf) published a short guide in Lexology regarding some of the most important considerations when it comes to brand building and trademark registration. The conclusions which can be made are:

• It is highly recommendable descriptive brand names to be avoided. The reasons for these are many. From one hand, some of these names will receive refusal for trademark registration by the Patent Offices. From another point of view, such names can be registered in combination with graphics or other distinctive words, however, this protection will be weaker due to the fact that the descriptive elements can be used by everyone.
• The brand name descriptiveness has to be evaluated bearing in mind the different languages. For instance, in the case of European trademarks, even if the brand name is distinctive in one of the languages in the EU, in case that it is descriptive in another one, the trademark can receive a refusal.
• Clearing trademark search for earlier similar or identical marks has to be done before any use of a trademark, because otherwise if you start using it, you can be accused of trademark infringement.

The full article can be found here.

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