Reasons why you should care about trademarks

2. • Trademark is common and almost everyone
deals with trademarks (brands) on a daily
basis.
• Consumers’ decisions on their purchases are
influenced by trademarks.
• Business owners should have increased
awareness on branding, brand
management, protection, and understanding
of their brand value.

3.  Trademarks help you distinguish your
products and services from those of
competitors and help identify you as the
source.
 Trademarks indicate a consistent level of
quality of your products and services.

4.  Awareness of your brand and the goodwill
embodied in your trademark can often take
decades to establish.
• Aggregate cost of
advertising, promotion, marketing, and sales
efforts can easily reach into tens of millions or
even billions of dollars, depending on the product /
service.

5.  Differentiating
your product / service from
competitors is increasingly difficult to
achieve, especially over a protracted
period.

6.  Trademarks are the most efficient
commercial communication tool ever
devised to:
• “cut through the clutter”;
• capture the consumer’s attention; and
• make your products / services stand out.

7.  Trademarks protect the consuming public
by preventing confusion as to the source of
goods or services.

8.  Ifthe product made under a brand turns out to
be defective, consumers have accurate
information about the source of a product and
can return it to the manufacturer or supplier for a
refund.

9.  Trademarks give consumers the ability to
protect themselves by relying upon known
brands of products or services.

10.  Trademarks provide consumer
convenience by allowing consumers to
identify (by word, logo, slogan, package
design, or other indicators of origin) which
product or service they would like to
purchase or to avoid purchasing.

11.  Trademarks provide consumer
convenience by allowing consumers to
base their purchasing decisions on what
they have heard, read, or experienced
themselves.

12.  Trademarks motivate a consistent level of
quality, helping the consumer to decide
whether to purchase a desirable product or
service again or to avoid an undesirable
one.

13.  Trademarks dramatically reduce the costs
of decision-making by allowing consumers
to rapidly select the desired product or
service from among competitive offerings.

14.  Trademarks can wrap up in a single brand or
logo intellectual and emotional attributes and
messages about your:
• company;
• reputation;
• products and services; and
• consumers’ lifestyles, aspirations, and desires.

15.  Trademarks can work effectively across
borders, cultures, and languages.
• Famous marks can be recognized as brands even
when the native population speaks a different
language and reads a different alphabet.

16.  Trademarks are one of the few assets that
can provide you with a long-term
competitive advantage.

17.  Trademarks are usually the only business
asset you have that can appreciate in
value over time.

18.  Trademarks are leverageable – they
provide value beyond your core
business, and can pave the way for
expansion (or acquisition, if desired) of
your business.

19.  Brand Expansions:
• KELLOGG’S – from “ready-to-eat cereals” to
“snack bars and breakfast bars”
• ARMANI – from “runway apparel” to “perfumes
and eyewear”

20.  Brand Extensions:
• VIRGIN – from airline services to entertainment
media and carbonated drinks

21.  Itis often difficult to see significant
differences among competing products.
• Your brand can be the critical factor in driving the
consumer’s purchase decision!

22.  The price variance among competitive offerings
can also be substantial, often by 100% or more
in the same setting, such as a newspaper. Once
again, your brand can make the difference.

23.  People prefer working for well-known and
well-regarded brands and their companies.

24.  Popularbrands generally reflect successful
businesses, which tend to have better
employment opportunities, remuneration
and benefits, and potential for career
advancement.

25.  Popular brands are often inspirational and
aspirational, qualities that feed into a person’s
natural ambition.

26.  Because popular brands inspire positive feelings
in people’s minds, they make employment
opportunities more attractive to candidates.

27.  Forthe same reasons, employee retention
can be higher for popular brands.

28. A bargain to obtain and maintain:
• Government filing fees can be as low as Rs. 4500
in India to obtain trademark registration.
• Only a few hundred rupees more in government
fees are necessary to maintain registration over a
ten-year term.

29. • Potentially infinite lifespan with renewals (as long as
the mark is used in commerce):
 COLT (first registered in 1889)
 QUAKER (1895)
 PEPSI-COLA (1896)
 MERCEDES (1900)

30.  Trademarks share attributes with other
forms of property, like real estate, as they
can be:
• Bought and Sold (“Assignments”)
 in the acquisition of a business
 in the acquisition of a specific product line

31.  Trademarks share attributes with other
forms of property, like real estate, as they
can be:
• Pledged (as security, like a mortgage)
 to secure loans to a business

32.  Trademarks share attributes with other
forms of property, like real estate, as they
can be:
• Licensed (like renting or leasing)
 character merchandising
(entertainment, movies, television)
 sports endorsements and sponsorships
 co-branding promotions, sweepstakes, contests

33.  Visual:
• Words • Logos and other designs
• Slogans • Shapes
• Alpha-numeric • Colors
• Non-English words and characters • Three-dimensional objects
• Non-Roman alphabet words and • Position / Location
characters
• Motion
• Position / Location

34.  Auditory
• Music
• Sounds
• Voices
 Olfactory
• Smells and Scents
 Tastes
 Tactile

35.  Trademarks are often the “top-of-mind”
address for an Internet user seeking
information about a company and its
products / services.

36.  The same commercial magnetism of a brand that
drives repeat purchases in the bricks-and-mortar
world also drives visitors to a website.
 Highertraffic on a website translates into higher
rankings on search engine results, bringing even
more traffic.

37.  As a result of the importance of the
Internet to marketing, it is very important to
obtain desirable domain names at the
same time that a trademark is adopted.
 Only one domain name consisting of the
trademark is permitted in a given Top Level
Domain (like .com).

38.  The Internet also has the potential for widescale
unauthorized use of your brand, requiring
vigilance to police both proper use of your brand
and infringements of it:
• META tags
• Embedded or hidden text
• Counterfeits and design knockoffs
• Gray market goods

39.  In
India, deceptive and misleading
advertising is prohibited by:
• consumer protection laws;
• unfair competition laws; and
• the Trademarks Act, 1999.

40.  Ofall the forms of intellectual property, the
courts and administrative agencies are
often most familiar with trademarks.
 Courts
are more inclined to grant remedies
when unfair competition is present.

41.  BUT, trademark laws are not meant to
prevent the fair use of a competitor’s
trademarks in comparative advertising, as
long as the information in the
advertisement is not itself deceptive or
misleading.

42. 1. Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find you.
2. Trademarks help prevent confusion, deception, and mistake in the
marketplace.
3. Trademarks are among the most economically efficient
communication tools ever developed, for businesses and
consumers alike.
4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.
5. Trademarks support stronger sales volume, stronger margins, and
can provide price maintenance legally.

43. 6. Trademarks can make hiring easier. People prefer working for
well-known and well-regarded brands and their companies.
7. Trademarks can be a bargain to obtain and maintain, as
government filing and maintenance fees tend to be much lower
than the fees for patents.
8. Trademarks are a very flexible and creative form of intellectual
property protection.
9. Trademarks open the way for businesses to most effectively
utilize the Internet.
10. Trademarks are one of the most effective weapons against unfair
competition and are often easier and cheaper to enforce than any
other form of intellectual property.