Frequent Asked Questions
WHAT IS A TRADEMARK?
A trademark is a sign that you can use to distinguish your business goods or services from those of other traders.
WHAT IS IT FOR?
The trademark plays an essential role in the field of competition. The quality of the products or services will be known by the consuming public through his identification with the trademark. That is why often the “trademark” of a company is the greatest asset which it possesses, exceeding the value of their tangible assets.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRADEMARKS AND PATENTS?
It is common to hear say "I want to patent my brand". The sentence is technically incorrect; brands are not "patented" just registered. Inventions or utility models are patented; so do not confuse this term refers to trademarks.
Trademark refers to the creation of a distinctive sign to identify particular products or services. The invention is an object or technician which has innovative and transformative characteristics, to be considered invention must be nonexistent worldwide.
WHAT DO YOU OBTEIN WITH TRADEMARK REGISTRATION?
The trademark registration guarantees its owner the property and exclusive use, and allows exercising all the defenses by unauthorized use.
The titleholder may authorize the use of its trademark by third parties under contracts of license, franchise, total or partial sale of the brand, etc.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I DON'T REGISTER MY BRAND?
The most probably thing is that a competitor or any third party want to (and can) use your brand or a similar one for identify same products or services causing confusion. In that case if you have not registered your trademark, you don't have any legal tools to avoid that use.
Moreover, if a third party registers your trademark and become its owner, he also will be able to forbid you to continue using your trademark.
I HAVE A COMPANY AND I USE ITS NAME AS TRADEMARK, IT IS VALID?
No, the registration of a company (LLC, INC, Corp.) does not grant the exclusivity of the corporate name, and will always be subject to possible claims by third parties who have ownership rights acquired under a title.
To avoid having to modify the corporate name of your company you have to register it as a trademark, since the right of ownership over a trademark is only acquired by the registry in the Trademark Office of the country in which you want to operate.
MY TRADEMARK REGISTRATION IS VALID IN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?
No, trademarks have territorial validity that is why you should apply for registration in each country in which you want to protect it.
Also there exists Community Registrations in some countries that belongs to a community (Ex. European Union) that protects the use of your trademark in all countries that are part of the community. Those registrations are convenient when you want to register the trademark in several countries simultaneous on the same community; otherwise it is advisable to apply in each Country singly.
WHAT ARE THE INTERNATIONAL CLASSES?
It is a classification of the different existing products and services. The protection of a registered trademark is for products and/or services that are included within the chosen class.
There are 45 classes that comprise the totality of products and services. Classes 1 to 34 comprise products, and classes 35 to 45 comprise services.
There are products or services that by their peculiarities it registration is suggested in some extra class in addition to the specific class.
For example, if you have a trademark of soft drink you should select Class 32, but also we suggested to register in Class 33 (alcoholic beverages) even when you have no intentions of selling alcoholic beverages but in order to prevent third parties to use (or exploit) your trademark to sell those products.
The coverage of your trademark will depend on number of classes that you protected them.
IF THE TRADEMARKS ARE TERRITORIAL ¿WHY CLASSIFICATION IS "INTERNATIONAL"?
The Classification is International because it is an agreement between the nations of the world that was established under the Nice Agreement in 1957 and it is constantly reviewed by the Committee of Experts of the Nice Union.
While the Trademark Registration protects the trademark in the territory of the country in which registration is applied, most of the countries in the world adopted the Nice International Classification to define the classes of its goods and services.
HOW DO I DETERMINATE THE CORRESPONDANT CLASS?
You can search for the category in the list of classes on our website. In the event that you do not know in which class you should register or if you need help you can contact us at info@globemarked.com
WHAT MEANS "PRIMARY CLASS" AND "ADDITIONAL CLASS"?
In the question ¿What are classes? It is explained that the trademark is protected by items (classes) according to the activity, on many occasions it is necessary to register the trademark in many classes.
In some countries you will pay a fee for the first class and then a minor amount for additional classes in cases that you need to register in many classes. Other countries additional class has the same fee than the first class.
The "Primary Class" is the price of registration in one single class, and "additional class" is the cost of registration for each additional class.
WHAT IS WORD MARKS, FIGURATIVES AND MIXED MARKS?
Trademarks can be word marks (words, letters or numbers), pictorial marks (drawings, logos) or mixed marks (combines names and figurative elements).
THE INITIATE OF PROCEEDINGS FOR TRADEMARK REGISTRATION ENSURES THE OWNERSHIP OF THE BRAND?
No, the begging of the procedure does not imply acceptance or granting of the trademark applied, but the process must go through the relevant stages corresponding to obtain final resolution and the corresponding title.
CAN I CHANGE MY TRADEMARK ONCE STARTED THE PROCESS?
The registered trademark or trade name cannot be changed. If you need to change any element you must apply for a new registration, for example if the company logo changes or expand the list of products or services.
WHAT IS AN OPPOSITION TO THE REGISTRATION OF MY TRADEMARK?
Opposition is a legal proceeding in which a party seeks to prevent a pending application for a trademark from being granted registration.
HOW THE THIRD PART TAKES KNOWLEGE ON REGISTRATION OF MY TRADEMARK?
The titleholders entrusts Law firms to make the monitoring of its trademarks. Those Law Firms verified in the Official Gazettes that published the Trademark Office of each country that no one intends to register an identical, similar or confusingly brand.
WHAT I HAVE TO DO IF I HAVE AN OPPOSITION?
In case of opposition by a third party, the Trademark Office carries out a procedure for each party (applicant and opponent) to present their defenses and then issues a resolution granting or denying the trademark.
HOW LONG IS THE TERM OF A TRADEMARK? IT CAN BE RENEW?
The term of a registered trademark depends on the laws of each country, usually Trademark Office granted the right for a period of 10 years. Trademarks can be renewed indefinitely in classes in which it was registered.
In some countries renew procedure requires to demonstrate the use of the trademark.
WHAT IS THE PARIS CONVENTION?
The Paris Convention is the Union of the countries for the protection of Industrial property. It sets out a number of commitments aimed at defending and unifying trademark law in each of the countries members.
One of their main articles allows the titleholders that apply for a trademark in any country of the Union, shall enjoy a priority certificate to deposit the same trademark registration in those countries of the Union too, if the apply is made within six months of the first deposit will be recognized as the priority the date of the first application.
WHAT IS THE PRIORITY CERTIFICATE?
As is described in the previous answer when you have already started the procedure for trademark registration in any country, and within 6 months you can start in any other country member, which will take as starting date the day you applied the first registration.
