Legal
Issue No. 44 - December/January 2008
A lesson in branding
“These days, my team spends half of its time running brand-related court cases around the country, and the other half helping clients with strategies to ensure that their brand is protected without the need for litigation,” said Brand litigator, Tim O’Callaghan from national commercial law firm, Piper Alderman.
“There is a lot of myth and misunderstanding out in the business community about trade marks and brands. It is this lack of understanding that encores some very expensive and distracting litigation further down the track.”
One great myth is that you protect your brand by registering it as a business name. The truth is that registering a brand as a business name does not give the owner rights to protect the name.
Another great myth is that if you register your trade mark in Australia, this will give you the right to use the trade mark anywhere in the world. This causes all sorts of trouble when people start to export their products overseas and find that their trade mark is owned by someone else in the country where they want to sell. Not only can they not protect their trade mark, but they are leaving themselves open to be sued for trade mark infringement in that country as well.
This sort of problem is particularly common for those selling wine overseas. Business owners need to keep a check on this all the time. Once allowed to continue for even a short time it is very hard to stop. They need to keep monitoring the internet to make sure that their trade marks are not being improperly used. If they move quickly and decisively they can often get the problem resolved without having to resort to litigation.
The best way to protect a brand is to register it as a trade mark. The Australian Trade Marks registration system is relatively cheap and easy to use. Once the trade mark is Registered, everyone else can see it on the Trade Marks Register and they will know that the brand has been taken. Most people will not try to use ...
