Building a business takes time. You choose a name, create a logo, set up a website and slowly start getting customers to recognise your brand.
But there is one part of building a brand that many business owners leave until later: protecting it.
A Trademark Registration for your UK business can become a valuable asset as a company grows. The problem is that a mistake made at the beginning can become much more expensive to fix once the brand is established.
Here are five Trademark Registration mistakes growing businesses should try to avoid.
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1. Using a name without checking whether it is already protected
Finding an available company name at Companies House does not necessarily mean you are free to use it as a trade mark.
This is where some businesses get caught out. They choose a name, register their company, purchase the domain and begin marketing — without checking whether another business already has rights to a similar name.
The issue might not show up. It can come up months or years later when the company has already spent money on ads, boxes, signs and building its reputation.
If the name needs to be changed those expenses might have to be done.
Pro Tip: Before committing to a new brand name, check existing trade marks and look for potentially similar names in your industry.
2. Thinking a Companies House registration protects the brand
It is easy to assume that registering a company name gives you ownership of the brand.
It doesn’t.
Company registration and trade mark registration have different purposes. Companies House deals with the legal registration of your company, while a trade mark can provide protection for your brand in connection with specific goods or services.
So, even if “Bright Leaf Ltd” is accepted as a company name, that does not automatically mean the business has exclusive trade mark rights to “Bright Leaf”.
For a business planning to invest heavily in its name, understanding this difference is important.
The takeaway: Don’t treat company formation as a substitute for trade mark protection. They are two separate steps.
3. Waiting until the business is already successful
When money is tight, protecting a brand can seem like something to deal with later.
That approach can backfire. The business that has built a customer base gained followers. Investing in marketing finds that the business name becomes much harder to replace.
There could be new packaging, website updates, signage, marketing campaigns and customer communications to deal with.
And there is another risk: someone else may register a similar mark before you do.
The takeaway: If the brand is important to the future of the business, think about protecting it while you are still building it — not only after it becomes successful.
4. Not thinking carefully about what the business actually does
A Trademark isn’t simply registered for a name in isolation. Protection is linked to particular goods and services.
This matters when a business is growing.
A company might start by selling one type of product but later expand into related products, online retail, consultancy or other services. If the original application wasn’t planned carefully, the business may discover that its protection doesn’t cover everything it now does.
That doesn’t mean businesses should try to register every possible category. It means they should think realistically about where the brand is going.
The takeaway: Look at both your current activities and genuine plans for growth before deciding what protection your trade mark needs.
5. Forgetting about the trade mark after registration
Having a trade mark registered is a step but it should not be the final part of the discussion.Businesses change. They launch products, enter new markets, work with new partners and sometimes meet other businesses that use similar branding.
If nobody keeps an eye on the brand potential problems can easily go unnoticed.Regularly reviewing the trade mark portfolio and watching how the brand is used can help you spot problems earlier.
The main point: Treat the trade mark as a business asset not as a box that gets ticked once and then forgotten.
Protecting the brand before it becomes expensive.
For a growing business the name and reputation can be worth more than the cost of getting the basics right. Checking a proposed name before launching, understanding the difference, between company registration and trade mark protection and getting the application details right can all help avoid problems
If you are unsure where to start, BusinAssist provides a professional Trademark Registration service for UK Businesses that can help you understand the process, check the application requirements and prepare the registration correctly.
It is much easier to protect the brand before years have been spent building it than to rebuild the brand after a costly dispute.
