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Understanding the importance of trademark monitoring

A consistent Trademark monitoring service is what differentiates a growing brand from a “going” brand. How? Because businesses, and individuals, let the ball slip when it comes to consistent trademark overseeing.

In order to understand why it is important to monitor trademarks, we must understand why a trademark itself is important and why keeping an eye on it matters.

Why is a trademark important?

Lets start with an example; you are a brilliant innovator who create a novel product, something that is a breakthrough in the industry, you share it with your friends and associates, who cheer you on the marvel you have created and are excited for you to share it with world. Now suppose you wake up one day and find out an exact product in the market, has been launched and shared across multiple users already, with a different name, a different “owner” and a completely different company.

Turns out that while you were busy celebrating your product, someone was already working on either stealing that idea, or creating something similar, and beat you to it in terms of copyrighting and trademarking “his” creation. What happens next? Technically you can no longer propagate that it was “your” product/service/idea, and you are bound to lose the first in market advantage together with the revenues associated with it. Tough right?

Simply put, this is why registering a trademark is important. Your trademark is your Identity in a market, it helps you differentiate, identify and grow as a business, individual or an organization. In a dynamic business landscape, a company’s brand identity is its most valuable asset, the reputation, recognition, and consumer trust associated with a brand can significantly impact its success. Hence having a properly placed trademark in the mix can significantly help in maintaining this success.

A trademark done right, does the following things for your brand:

  • Secures the brand name
  • Protects against infringements
  • Builds market trust
  • Prevents confusion with counter/imitating brands
  • Gives you a legal back end to your brand
  • Increases Your Asset Value

However, a trademark is only as good as the trademark monitoring service aligned with it.

What is trademark monitoring?

In a nutshell, it is a consistent and thorough process of searching websites, social media, and online marketplaces for unauthorized sellers using your existing trademarks like logos, phrases, packaging, and more. Brands need to monitor for digital trademark infringements so they can be addressed as quickly as possible when they are found.

Its important therefore to have a trademark monitoring service in place when you register/trademark a brand because this service will comb the web for infringements and alert brands when there is a possible threat to address.

An online trademark monitoring service can be an individual or company, like lawyers, or software that automatically scours the web for your brand.

A trademark done right, does the following things for your brand:

  • The access of information or database associated with a particular trademark monitoring service

  • The scope of the company, individual or software offering the service

  • The frequency of reports, the detailing of it and the call to action associated with any trademark infringements that the monitoring service might find.

If businesses were to search for the best trademark monitoring service available to them regionally, or globally, these are the elements they might want to weigh before choosing one.

The best trademark monitoring service would mostly include the following scopes:

  • Conduct searches within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for federal trademark filings.
  • Perform searches within each of the 50 states for state-level filings.
  • Investigate international filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
  • Generate comprehensive reports on mark applications that may conflict.
  • Identify opposition deadlines for all potentially conflicting marks.
  • Provide legal recommendations regarding appropriate actions to pursue.

With the plethora of trademarks being registered across the US, trademark registration in USA or even in a state for e.g trademark registration in Florida is a critical process and businesses need to have proper monitoring services in place to ensure that their trademark is secure, the brand is not being infringed by counterfeit names or products, it is following the right regulations and it is registered under the person or the company it is supposed to be with.

Trademark monitoring is an essential service or step that should be undertaken by businesses, the importance of it cannot be and should not be undermined, by diligently observing their trademarks and taking measures to ensure their security from infringements businesses can maintain their reputation, mitigate brand or equity-related risks, enforce their intellectual property rights and build consumer trust, ultimately raising the value of their brand asset.