Fashion is an ever-changing industry. Last year, it was valued at $1.5 trillion across the globe. A market this huge is massively exposed to risks of counterfeiting, infringement and passing-off and so protection becomes a need.
Intellectual Property Rights offers various types of protection that cover your clothing line but the most effective of them all is trademark protection. Here’s why:
1. Because it protects your brand i.e., your brand’s name and its logo. It helps your customers differentiate your brand from others.
Imagine, if Pepsi and Coca-Cola did not have their trademark registered, we would have been unable to distinguish between the two. Pepsi’s circle logo with three different colours is distinctive and so is Coca-Cola’s red colour with a unique font style for the word ‘CocaCola’.
2. Because registering a trademark helps you build brand loyalty among the masses as you provide them with quality products. It prevents others from counterfeiting and selling your brand.
3. Because you get to sue infringers of your brand.
4. Because trademark offers wide protection over your design and creativity. Unlike copyrights and design protection which may be limited in their scope, trademark creates umbrella protection over all merchandise or services.
So, it is crucial to get your brand registered and ensure that your brand follows these pre-requisites for registration:
1. It should be distinctive: What does it mean?
Well, distinctive means something that helps you be different from others. For e.g., imagine a box filled with shapes of circles and triangles. When you are asked to sort only circles from the box, it is the triangle that helps you distinguish circles and picks them. Similar is the case with your trademark.
2. It should be unique: Technically, unique is a synonym for distinctive, however in trademarks, it means something else. It means one of a kind.
For example, imagine at a theme party, you are asked to wear traditional attires. Everybody wears their ethnic outfits. In walks a person dressed like a rainbow with a hint of traditional attire. Isn’t that unique?
3. Conduct a search: To ensure that your mark is in fact unique and distinctive in nature, conduct a thorough search with the GCS Global Brands website to check if your trademark is available. Here you can submit an enquiry and one of our trademark experts will be happy to have a chat to discuss which solutions will work best for you.
Conclusion:
Thus, a trademark is your go-to friend for protection from your rivals, competitors and fraudsters. Consult our trademark experts to inquire about trademark registrations. Remember, your intellectual genius must rightfully be protected and you should have an exclusive right to decide when and how to use it!
