Trade Mark Review

Corporate, product and service "brands" are broadly speaking protected by trade mark rights, which serve to indicate the origin of the product or service by distinguishing it from others in the marketplace. It takes an expert to identify all potential trade marks a business has, and develop the right strategy to protect them. Over time businesses build up portfolios of trade mark rights, which require (but often do not get) periodic review to ensure that the protection provided is robust, rational and cost-effective.

A trade mark review will identify the trade marks that you use and that are of ongoing importance to you, review the protection that is in place and advise how this can be improved, in terms of both the protection afforded and the cost required to maintain it.

When we conduct a review we typically:

• Review the public facing side of your business and its products and services, such as marketing materials, websites and social media, to identify the trade marks that you use
• Review the registered trade mark rights you have in place
• Identify gaps in protection that require filling, in terms of either the trade marks themselves and the goods and services protected, or the geographical scope of the rights in place
• Identify trade mark registrations that are no longer required, or where protection can be rationalised with a view to reducing the number of registrations in the portfolio, in order to save on the cost of maintaining a portfolio
• Provide you with a cost effective filing strategy to remedy the deficiencies identified in the review, setting out likely timings and costs