As soon as you have devised a logo or word mark. We can assist your decision making process by advising on suitable trade marks, and conducting a trade mark search if required.

A search will confirm whether the trade mark is available for registration or use. If a search is not conducted it may turn out that the mark is being used by a business that will take steps to stop your use of the conflicting trade mark. This could turn out to be a costly mistake to your business.

A registration is limited to the country it is filed. A trade mark will need to be filed in each country of interest overseas, or filed under an international treaty protecting the mark in many countries.

An unregistered trade mark is vulnerable for many reasons. The main reasons include the risk that another business could register the same trade mark as they are unaware of your brand or current use, and in a few years time you will not be able to stop their use of the same trade mark. Registration offers exclusive rights to the trade mark and allows others to check the register for your mark and see that you are claiming monopoly rights to the trade mark.

An application must be filed before use or disclosure of the invention. If not, any rights can be rendered invalid. For this reason it is important to ensure no disclosure of the invention occurs before the decision is made to protect the invention.

We recommend that a confidentiality agreement or non-disclosure agreement is in place before disclosure occurs.

An invention can be protected by a patent and possibly a design registration. These forms of protection cover different design aspects of an innovative product, and the process to obtaining registration or a patent is different.

A design for a protect or article is only eligible for registration if it is new. An application must be filed before any use or disclosure of the design.

Usually photos of the design are taken, or drawings prepared, showing the design features to be protected.

It is possible to file an application with instructing a patent attorney but we do not recommend such practice. If it is not done properly the application may not get registered or you may not obtain the degree of protection you are entitled to receive.