Despite the rather difficult situation in the country, the issue of intellectual property protection remains relevant.
Thus, the state fees of Ukrpatent for registration of trademarks are not small at the moment, and the accelerated registration procedure in connection with the war in Ukraine has been temporarily suspended (so the overall registration period may be more than two years), but let’s sort out together whether it is “time” now to register a brand as a trademark.
Trademark registration has been and remains one of the most effective ways to protect your business from unfair competition and provides a wide range of benefits to the brand owner.
Firstly, the legal protection is that you, as the owner of the property rights to TM, have the exclusive (sole) right to use your TM, as well as to prohibit the use of the trademark by any third parties without your consent.
Imagine the situation. You opened your own business (cafe, flower store, gas station – anything), spent money on developing a logo (trademark), applied the logo in the design, ordered advertising – and you have already become popular with consumers. But decided to postpone trademark registration, or thought it was not necessary. Seeing your success, unscrupulous person “A” decides to go your way and use your already promoted brand and recognizable name, but has time to apply for trademark registration. Person “A” already has a working brand, and you get a requirement to stop any use of the logo, as a result, you have to spend a second time on a new identity, design and advertising or enter into a legal dispute with Person “A”, which of course is measured in time, money and nerves.
! Please note that the rights arising from the trademark certificate begin to run from the date of filing, i.e., you do not have to wait for several years until you actually receive the registration certificate in order to get proper legal protection.
Secondly, you as the owner of the TM have the exclusive right to consent to the use of the TM to any third parties, which gives you the opportunity to transfer the rights to use the TM (= allow the use of your TM) on the basis of various types of contracts in the field of intellectual property and receive appropriate monetary remuneration for it.
Thirdly, the registration of the trademark gives you the opportunity to get a domain in the .UA zone.
If you still have doubts or have any questions – do not hesitate and contact us for advice.