Three Big Trademark Mistakes
How much productive time will you lose, if you have to step away
from business to deal with one of these common problems?
LAWSUITS FOR INFRINGEMENT
Small business owners usually don’t have time to thoroughly check for conflicting trademarks, especially in faraway places or related fields. You’re too busy working on sales! We will help you avoid this first (very common) trademark mistake. First by doing a good search for competing brands. Then by helping register your own strong trademark. This will avoid accidentally infringing someone else’s brand, and risking lawsuits when you can least afford it.
COPYCATS AND COUNTERFEITS
Without a registered trademark, you’ll miss out on the rights granted under the Trade Marks Act 1995. That includes the exclusive use of your trademark in Australia, for your specified goods and services. You also gain the right to assistance from Customs against imports of counterfeits from overseas. Without these rights, you may have to pursue copycats through expensive court actions under common law or the Australian Consumer Law.
LOST BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
Will you be ready when it’s time to expand your business, or sell it? Lenders and buyers will insist on ‘due diligence’ to confirm all is in order. Having registered your trademark will make this go more smoothly. First, because your trademark is a valuable asset. Second, it’s evidence you aren’t infringing another brand. And remember, a trademark takes at least 7.5 months from filing to grant. You don’t want that sort of delay when seeking finance or a sale.
Here’s What To Do Next
How It Works
Provide Details (5 minutes)
Trade Mark Search (< 2 Days)
Application (2 Days)
Why Choose Acorn?
Because we specialise in providing expert trade mark advice to
small and medium sized Australian businesses – like yours.
We’re Easy To Deal With
We Offer Sensible Prices
We’re Responsive To Your Needs
Testimonials
Get it done the easy way, by experts.
We started our design shop out of the garage, and it just sort of grew from there without any real planning. As we got bigger, eventually realised that we might accidentally tread on the toes of other designers, so decided to register a trade mark on our own (to save money). It’s harder than it looks! It was a relief to hand it off to Acorn and get it done the easy way, by experts. The fixed-fee deal gave me a lot more certainty. It’s a bargain, too. An infringement claim would have broken us.
Shouldn’t have worried about the cost.
The fashion industry is constantly getting ripped off, and there’s a lot of money at stake. But I was worried about the cost of trademarking my new brand. Plus, the paperwork. Shouldn’t have worried. Done fast and costs maybe ten dollars a month when you average it out. Thanks!
I wish we trademarked our brand as soon as we started.
In a busy sector with long-term repeat business, our lifetime customer value (including family referrals) averages over $10k. So I was pretty angry to find that a competitor was using our brand name in AdWords to poach new customers from us. The team at Acorn were straight on it. It was a relief to have our trademark application in place within a week. I wish we trademarked our brand as soon as we started.
Thank you for listening.
You don’t realise how important trade marks can be, until you try selling a small chain of businesses. Thank you for listening and answering all my questions! When the time pressures start, it’s really nice to have someone on your side.
