Trademark Monitoring: Why Your Business Needs It
Learn the benefits of trademark monitoring for your business. Act now to secure your brand and ensure legal protection with our expert guidance.
According to data from TrademarKraft, about 500,000 trademark applications are made in the US each year.
You may need to secure a trademark for your business, but even if you do, how do you go about keeping it secure? The right legal protection for your business will help you avoid harm to your brand reputation and various other potential issues. The solution is trademark monitoring, a reliable form of intellectual property protection.
So what is trademark monitoring, and why is it so important? Keep reading to find out.
What Is Trademark Monitoring?
Trademark monitoring is a business service that keeps track of your trademark landscape. It specifically looks for potential inflicts or conflicting applications. It does this by tracking applications before approval.
Comprehensive trademark monitoring services involve searching:
- Federal trademark filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
- International filings with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
- State-level filings in every state
If you hire a trademark monitoring provider, they should be able to create detailed reports on any potentially conflicting mark applications. Along with this, they’ll be able to tell you any opposition deadlines for potentially conflicting marks and offer advice on what actions you can/should take.
In theory, you could search all of these filings yourself, but it would be incredibly time-consuming and you would struggle to complete any other tasks. Business trademark services use specialized software and smart algorithms to do all of this much faster. As a result, you can efficiently identify and address any potential conflicts to protect your brand.
The Purpose of Trademark Monitoring
Many business owners make the assumption that a trademark is enough to prevent infringement, but this is a common misconception. While a registered trademark gives you the right to stop other people or companies from infringing your brand, it can’t actually prevent infringements.
Ultimately, the responsibility to enforce your rights falls to you. It’s important to note that taking action quickly usually makes it easier to stop an infringer. Staying on top of things with a trademark-watching strategy will help minimize the harm caused by an infringement.
The intention of trademark monitoring is to identify any potential infringements that could cause confusion amongst customers or impact your brand image, identity, or reputation. Fast identification allows you to take suitable legal steps to protect your rights. This may include:
- Sending cease and desist letters
- Filing application oppositions
- Initiating legal proceedings
Trademark monitoring may be more important in today’s world than ever before. Online markets have become very important, and many companies look at global reach rather than just domestic. Because of this, it’s now crucial that companies consider international trademark issues, and these can be incredibly difficult to deal with without the use of trademark monitoring services.
Benefits of Trademark Monitoring
Various kinds of businesses can benefit from effective trademark monitoring. The right brand security strategies can help protect your business, making it easier to grow and achieve your goals.
Early Detection
If a company infringes on your trademark, it could take a while for you to find out about it. A business could go under the radar for a long time using a name or identity that’s suspiciously similar to yours. Someone could even be selling counterfeit versions of your product.
Such situations can harm your brand reputation, and the longer they go on, the worse the impact will be. Trademark monitoring will help you identify potential infringements quickly so you can act on them before they cause any damage to your brand.
Protect Brand Reputation
Your brand reputation is incredibly important, and it doesn’t take too much to tarnish it. You don’t want this to happen, especially as it can take years to build.
Counterfeit products and trademark infringements might actually have nothing to do with you, but they can still have a huge impact on your brand reputation. Trademark monitoring is one of the best ways to stop such threats, protecting brand reputation and customer loyalty.
Avoid Unintentional Infringement
While many trademark infringements are intentional, some are not. A new startup might be unaware of your brand, so it’s possible they could choose a name that’s similar or identical to yours, especially if they’re in the same industry. With effective trademark monitoring, you can spot these situations and may be able to resolve the situation amicably before it becomes a major issue.
Free Up Time and Resources
Searching for trademark infringements manually can take a lot of time and resources. If you try to do this internally, it can become very costly. With trademark monitoring services, you won’t need to worry about finding the manpower that’s needed for this and can instead focus on other crucial aspects of your business.
Gain Valuable Insights
Beyond identifying potential trademark infringements, trademark monitoring can provide valuable insights into your industry and the perception of your brand. From this, you can develop and improve your brand protection strategies to help stay ahead of the competition.
Peace of Mind
One of the main benefits of trademark monitoring is the peace of mind that it can provide. You won’t have to worry about trademark infringements coming out of nowhere and creating problems for your business or harming your brand reputation.
Efficient Legal Recourse
While some trademarks may be easy to resolve, others can require legal action. There are statutory deadlines in place, and trademark monitoring will help you take action before these expire, making it much easier to protect your intellectual property rights.
Keeping Your Brand Secure With Trademark Monitoring
Any company that wants to protect its intellectual property can benefit from trademark monitoring. It’s an efficient way to detect potential infringements and it allows you to take action quickly, minimizing the damage that can occur. Through this, you can help prevent any negative impact on your brand reputation that could set your business back years.
Berkeley Law and Technology Group understands how important trademarks are to businesses and works to help protect them. We provide expert trademark services to small start-ups and Fortune 100 companies and have earned a five-star rating on Google Reviews due to the results we produce. Take a look at our trademark services page to find out more about how we can help protect your business.