How an IP specialist created and protected her brand – a story
There is a saying that “the shoemaker's son always goes barefoot”. I am a supporter of exactly the opposite concept. It is our proverbial shoes that allow us to showcase what is important and why. If I recommend certain solutions to our clients, they are the solutions that I would use if I were in a similar situation.
I have always believed that work on securing a brand or logo should start at the concept creation stage. Now, I had the opportunity to find out, not only as an adviser and a representative, but, using the reference to shoes again, to step into the shoes of my clients. I went through the entire process of creating the brand of Markpresso intellectual property law firm.
In this article, I will share the rules of conduct that I professionally advise our clients to implement, and this time I applied them to our brand.
Creating the brand’s name
The first stage was to create the name. This stage, often underestimated by entrepreneurs and creators, was and is crucial. It required checking each invented name in terms of conflicts with those that already exist on the market. In other words, checking whether the name would face competition in two areas - intellectual property and marketing.
The first question we asked ourselves was - would the company name be understandable to our customers? In other words, will it be easy to pronounce and write? What can it mean in other languages? What associations does it evoke? In this case, we are very much involved in the area of marketing and if you have any doubts, it is worth using the support of a naming expert.
We knew from the beginning that we wanted to avoid a situation in which the name of the law firm would directly describe our services. Going through numerous trademark registration processes helps you develop a safe habit and learn an important lesson - descriptive names may pose a problem with registering a trademark, and thus protecting the name against its use by others.
The brainstorming is over - now it's the job of a trademark specialist
Sometimes, when you create a name, you are convinced that it is so unique that there will be no problem with its legal protection, because you created it by combining your chosen name or initials and your favorite word, or you combined a Latin word to create a specific association with your industry.
That was the case for us. However, when we started to verify the issues of conflicts with already registered trademarks, it turned out that our names are not so unique and we simply had to look further.
With today's market saturation, it is almost impossible to eliminate this risk completely. It is important, however, to limit it, and decide on a specific solution to know both its strengths and existing possible legal risks.
Filing the trademark
At this stage, Markpresso was already on our desk. Without waiting for the completion of work on the logo and website, we filed a word trade mark application to be sure that no one else in our industry would be able to use it. Then, we started to work on the logo. We wanted to choose characteristic and original elements here, too.
Our logo consists of a graphically stylized font and an additional graphic element. In communication, we have planned to use both the full marking with the name, but also the emblem itself. This also had an impact on our decisions regarding what trademarks to file.
Don't stop at trademark registration
Does adequate security end there? It is worth monitoring applications for similar trademarks to be aware of whether someone is trying to file a similar trademark application.
Moreover, from time to time (e.g. once a quarter) it is worth entering your name into a web browser to check whether anyone is violating your rights. Do not hesitate to use the help of a specialist in this field in terms of trademark examination, reporting, and monitoring. In turn, being specialists in the field of intellectual property protection, we used the help of specialists in naming, logo design, and brand communication strategy.
Of course, further plans await us. With trademarks, you protect not only the brand, but you can also protect the names of individual goods, and in our case, individual services. That's what we did! The use of the logo is changing and developing, maybe one day you will decide to create an animation of your logo.
If you are thinking about securing your brand, contact us and we will discuss possible actions together.