Are You Policing Your Trademarks?

Registering a trademark is only the first step in protecting your brand. Infringement of a trademark can occur without warning and can cause damage to your brand. Unfortunately, many trademark owners believe that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office will police their mark and no steps from their side are required for safeguarding it. Although a registered trademark can be cited against a later filed trademark application, not every individual or company chooses to register their trademarks. There may be similar trademarks used by others that remain unregistered but harm your brand’s goodwill. Protecting your trademark by policing them is an important part of your intellectual property strategy.

Importance of Policing Trademarks

A trademark provides your brand, and the goods and services associated with it, an exclusive identity. Trademarks act as brand identifiers. They are representatives of your brand that helps distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors. The uniqueness of your trademark is your strength. When a customer comes across your trademark on goods and services, he associates it with your business. Use of the same or a similar mark by competitors can cause confusion in the mind of the customer, leading to loss of the trademarks uniqueness. This threatens your brand’s reputation and also affects your sale. To prevent losing trademark distinctiveness and maintaining your standing in the marketplace, policing of trademarks is necessary.

Lucasfilm Case

The Lucasfilm case is a great example that highlights the importance of policing your trademarks. Last year, Lucasfilm served a cease-and-desist notice to the event company Newmindspace, demanding them to stop using the term ‘Light Saber’ in their charitable events. Lucasfilm is a San Francisco-based movie company that introduced Star Wars to the world. It holds several rights related to the movie, its characters, and concepts. ‘Light Saber’ is one such term trademarked by it. Newmindspace had been using the term in its lightsaber battle events. Once the events gained popularity, the trademark was seen by Lucasfilm as being confusing with their trademark. To put an end to this confusion, Lucasfilm served Newmindspace with the notice.

Consider for a moment that the movie company did not police its trademarks. The continuous usage of the Star Wars related term could have led to severe damage to the brand. Those not aware of the term being a registered trademark of Lucasfilm could have easily confused it with the promotional events conducted by Newmindspace. Lucasfilm would have lost its trademark’s uniqueness and value. The case demonstrates good reasons to police your trademarks. One, that unauthorized trademarks create confusion, which eventually leads to customers not associating the mark with your brand. Secondly, the loss of its distinct features can weaken your reputation and also lead to financial losses. Thirdly, even if you allow the trademark to be used for good causes (charity events in this case), you can eventually lose control over them and diminish your enforcing powers in other instances of infringement.

Protecting your trademark is vital to preserving its exclusivity and your ownership rights. Your trademark strategy does not end on registration, policing them prevents unauthorised use and infringement. To learn more about how to police your trademarks and prevent infringement consult an experienced trademark attorney.