III.4. BRAND PROTECTION, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY,
COPYRIGHT
Building a brand means developing an identity and creating logos and slogans that
clearly define your company. Product and trademark piracy is becoming a more
and more serious threat to companies in the consumer goods industry. Not only do
companies lose out on sales, but also the image of the company and of the brand
is damaged due to counterfeit products which are unrecognized. The term piracy
in relation to products and brands refers to the trading of goods which infringe intellectual property rights. Above all, this includes brands and patents, design rights,
utility models, copyrights and related industrial rights. There is a list of different
aspects that a company needs to take into consideration and include them in its
protection strategy.
Intellectual property can consist of many different areas, from logos and corporate
identity through to products, services and processes that differentiate your business offering. There is no doubt that lots of businesses have been benefit from the
mass use of Internet since it helps companies to increase their visibility at relatively
low cost. However internet has also a negative effect in business world since it has
also increased the chances of intellectual property theft. Companies of all sizes are
at risk of having their unique ideas, products or services infringed upon, even if they
are on the other side of the world, making intellectual property protection more
important than ever. Intellectual Property is protected in law usually by patents,
copyright and trademarks, which enables a firm to earn recognition or financial
benefit from what they invent or create.
T
There is a list of different aspects that a company needs to take into consideration
and include them in its protection strategy.
1. Trademarks
A trademark helps a company to protect the names of the products by preventing
other business from selling a product under the same name. Trademark registration is one of the most effective ways to build and defend a brand. In Europe, trademarks can be registered at a national level as a national trade mark or at EU-level
as a “European Union trade mark” (EUTM) (https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/
en/). National and EUTMs coexist and are complementary one to and other. The
same trademark can be registered at EU and/or national level. The EUTM system
consists of one single registration procedure that grants the owner an exclusive
right in all 28 EU countries. This dual system meets the requirements of companie