Trademark Monitoring- An Overview
Trademark monitoring, often referred to as trademark watching or brand monitoring, is an essential tool used for tracking existing and potential trademarks. It is a continuing process that involves close maintenance of the brand to prevent infringement, misuse, dilution, or counterfeiting of your products or services.
Trademark monitoring services simply allow trademark owners to get alerts when a similar trademark is filed. The process is further considered a crucial tool ensuring safeguarding the identity, reputation and value of the brand.
Trademark monitoring acts as a preventive measure that potentially saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and costly trademark infringement lawsuits. It not only monitors the use of registered trademarks to detect potential infringement by third parties but also involves regular monitoring of trademark registries and other sources of trademarks.
Every trademark owner must conduct trademark monitoring, to identify similar trademarks that might cause public confusion or has the potential to dilute marks reputation. Its major goal is to allow businesses to keep the distinctiveness and reputation of their brand. It preserves the owner’s trademark rights and prevents illegal usage by competitors or other parties.
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What are Trademarks?
Trademarks are basically a form of intellectual property that is used to identify and distinguish the products, services or brands from the others present in the market. It acquires a great deal of goodwill and reputation. It is crucial to vigilantly prevent third parties from using our trademarks represented in the form of words, phrases, symbols, designs or a combination of these elements.
Additionally, trademarks, which are characteristics or combinations of characteristics, are capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises. It falls under the ambit of intellectual property rights and is protected by national and international laws.
Type of Trademark Watching Services
Trademark watching services, which are designed to assist brand owners proactively, are further categorized into the following types, as discussed below:
1. Identical Trademark Watching
Identical trademark watching is a type of trademark watch service which mainly focusses on identifying trademarks that are exactly the same as your own, including logos, labels, or devices.
2. Similar Trademark Watching
Similar trademark watching is one of the types of trademark watching services that identify trademarks that are similar to your own, either visually or phonetically, to prevent confusion in the marketplace. It is also known as direct-hit monitoring, where trademark databases are routinely searched for identical or confusingly similar marks.
3. Trademark Watch with Opinion
Trademark watch with opinion is one of the types of trademark watching services that not only provides notification of similar or identical trademarks but also opines on the likelihood of infringement or confusion.
4. International Trademark Watching
International trademark watching is a type of trademark watching service that helps you keep track record of similar brand names across the web or new applications at the trademark office, both in India and globally.
Benefits of Online Trademark Monitoring
The trademark owners intending to protect their brand’s reputation must adopt both the proactive and reactive approaches necessary for effective trademark monitoring. Below mentioned are some of the key benefits of online trademark monitoring:
1. Protection Against Infringement
Trademark monitoring provides protection against trademark infringement activities and takes appropriate steps to stop future usage of their mark. It safeguards their brand identity and avoids harm to their intellectual property by identifying infringement.
2. Protection Against Knock-Offs
Regular monitoring of trademarks helps businesses to identify and take action against counterfeit and illegal use of their brand name. Furthermore, it helps protect your brand from knock-offs that significantly damage your brand’s reputation.
3. Protects Brand and Consumer Trust
Online trademark monitoring helps safeguard your brand’s reputation and ensures that customers continue to trust your products or services by preventing misuse or imitation of your trademark. It upholds the integrity of your brand with the national and international customer.
4. Prevention of Trademark Dilution
Trademark monitoring plays a crucial role in preventing trademark dilution, which occurs when third parties make use of confusingly similar to famous brands. It further helps businesses to stop such unauthorized use and preserve the distinctiveness of their trademark.
5. Reduces Cost of Legal Proceedings
Online trademark monitoring allows for early detection of potential infringements, which helps eliminate the cost of legal proceedings. It simply addresses threats at an early stage, leading to the conservation of valuable resources and time.
6. Provides Competitive Advantage
Trademark monitoring gives valuable and actionable insights into your competitors filing trademarks within the industry. Since a trademark is a strategic immaterial asset, keeping a track record of every competitor's activity helps you stay ahead in the market.
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Who Needs to Apply for Online Trademark Monitoring?
The list of entities eligible to apply for online trademark monitoring, which safeguards their brand identification, is as discussed below:
- Small firms and businesses
- Established large corporations
- Start-ups and small businesses
- e-Commerce businesses
- Trademark owners and holders
- Business in competitive industries
- Franchise and licensing companies
- International business with global trademarks
Documents Required for Trademark Registration in India
Registering a trademark in India ensures brand building, reputation, and legal protection. The documents required for trademark registration in India are mentioned below-
- Certificate of Incorporation (in case the applicant is a company)
- Partnership deed (in case the applicant is LLP or Partnership)
- Trust Deed (In case the applicant is Trust)
- KYC documents of authorised signatory (in case the applicant is other than an individual)
- BOR for authorising the representative to file and sign the application and power of attorney (in case the applicant is other than an individual)
- MSME Certificate (if any) (it is not mandatory, but if the applicant has an MSME Certificate, they will get a rebate of 50% on the application fees)
- Startup India registration certificate (if any) (it is not mandatory, but if the applicant has an MSME Certificate, they will get a rebate of 50% on the application fees)
- Logo/wordmark
- Nature of business
- If you currently use your trademark or trade name from earlier, you need a date from which the applicant starts using the mark
- Proof in support of prior usage of trademark or tradename, i.e. (Sale bills, purchase bills, advertising expense, yearly turnover, customer base)
How to Implement Online Trademark Monitoring?
The process to implement online trademark monitoring helps companies/ trademark owners to identify trademark infringement in a timely manner. Below is the detailed process required to implement trademark monitoring in India:
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Step 1: Identify Registered Trademark
The first requires the applicant to identify the registered trademark, which covers the name, symbol or another distinguishing characteristic of the trademark.
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Step 2: Determining Trademark
The next step requires the applicant to determine the trademark and create a monitoring system capable of keeping a watch on the phrases and variations you want to monitor.
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Step 3: Prevent Illegal Usage
In the next step, routine trademark monitoring ensures keeping an eye on the online activity to prevent any illegal usage of the business registered trade/ brand name.
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Step 4: Provide Real-Time Information
Once the trademark watch service is completed, real-time information on the attempts by other businesses and individuals intending to register similar trademarks in other domains is provided.
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Step 5: Action Against Infringement
The final step in trademark monitoring is taking prompt action and filing oppositions to avoid unauthorized infringement or misuse of your registered trademark.
Difference b/w Trademark Monitoring and Watch Services
The difference between trademark monitoring and trademark watch services, which aim at identifying and protecting the trademarks from potential infringement, are as outlined below:
- Trademark monitoring is an ongoing process, whereas trademark watch is a targeted service
- Trademark monitoring is crucial once the mark is registered, whereas trademark watch is checked if there is already a similar registered mark
- Trademark monitoring is a broad process, whereas trademark search is a narrow service
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Consequences of Not Having a Trademark Monitoring Plan
The applicants ignoring to have a trademark monitoring plan for similar goods or services results in irreversible harm to your previously distinctive mark. Any non-compliance with the online trademark monitoring services results in loss of trademark rights, confusion, financial loss, unauthorized and frivolous use of a trademark, etc. The absence of a trademark monitoring plan further leads to trademark infringement, brand dilution, loss of market share, and reputational damage. However, having a trademark monitoring plan is essential to reduce these risks and protect the long-term success of your business.
Fees for Trademark Monitoring Services in India
The fees for choosing trademark monitoring services in India vary depending on the provider and scope of services. However, these charges include the consultation fee required for trademark monitoring in India.
Timeline for Trademark Watching in India
The timeline for trademark watching in India typically takes around 12 to 18 months, varying depending upon factors like objections or oppositions raised, potential infringements, and notifications of similar marks being published in the trademark journal.
Why Trust Entermark for Online Trademark Monitoring?
At Entermark, we hold a team of experts with an understanding and knowledge of strong trademark monitoring software that helps customers protect their valuable brand names. Start connecting our team to make use of both traditional and unconventional resources used to monitor potential infringements of trademarks in India.
Access to 10 million + Trademark Records
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Team of 1000+ IP Professionals, Legal Advisors, and Brand Owners
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