Trademark Registration
How To Get Trademark For E-commerce Business?
You have successfully built up the online reputation of your e-commerce website. Your products are flying off the shelves and the e-commerce website is running on profit. Nothing can be more perfect than this! The misery will come when someone else will copy your products and launch them into the world, and cash in chips. You have obviously didn’t care for the trademark registration of your brand earlier. So, now you will watch your business downfall.
Building online reputation is not the end, only the beginning. Once you have successfully established your brand’s online reputation among your target audience, then it is time to protect it. After all, no business owner, regardless of small or large, would like to find out someone else has made a proxy of his unique brand or products. With a proxy brand, the products will lose their uniqueness. So, do you need a trademark for e-commerce business? Are you scouting around the internet, to get an idea about how to get a trademark for your brand? Well, you have come to the right place. Well, you have come to the right place. In this article, we are going to discuss all the details related to e-commerce trademarking.
Registered Trademark
Many business owners think that the trademark registration procedure would take longer, so they put the trademark sign either on the brand name, logo, or the advertising punch line. In case of an unregistered trademark, there are chances to another business owner can use the same logo, advertising punch lines, or brand name to his businesses.
Unregistered Trademark
Those who are after a registered trademark for their brand, apply for it to the Trademark Office and deal with patients for 18-24 months, waiting for all the procedure for their trademark registration to finish. Once your brand gets a trademark, and you get a trademark registration certificate, you will be allowed to use the registered trademark symbol to your brand. No one can copy your brand, logo, or tagline.
Why Registered Trademark is So Crucial For E-Commerce Business
The e-commerce entrepreneurs, at first, show reluctance to the procedure of having a registered trademark. Following are few advantages of getting a trademark for e-commerce business.
- Your business is small now, but it will grow in both prosperity and popularity in future. And people will start to follow your brand and products.
- Your brand and your products are unique; they came out from the creative corners of your mind. Therefore, you have to think of their protection.
- Your e-commerce business may grow in future, and you may think of applying a business loan for further investments. If it happens then besides the reputation, a registered trademark will add an extra star to your business.
- Even if you want to put your e-commerce website up for sale in future, having a registered trademark will make it easy for you; you will get the best price for your website.
Let’s discuss the advantages of getting a registered trademark in detail.
Advantages of Trademark Registration For A Business
A registered trademark hold beneficial values not only for the e-commerce business owners, but for all those who has gone the extra mile to achieve success in their business. Read out few advantages of having a registered trademark for your business.
Exclusive Legal Rights
If you have accomplished the registration procedure, and get a registered trademark certificate for your brand, then you will be allowed to take the legal action against copyright violation. You will not get any kind of trademark protection if you don’t apply for it or your trademark fails to get registered.
Maintained Brand Goodwill
The trademark symbol will reflect the brand value and market goodwill of your products. It will ensure your customers about the quality of your products, making you able to win and maintain their trust in the long run.
Distinct Brand And Product
One of the main reasons why business owners aim to achieve the trademark for their brand is to make their brand and products distinct, and tangible legally. The trademark registration will make your brand exclusively your intellectual property. This will help the company to generate the reputation of their brand and products among their customers.
Eligibility Of Attainting Global Trademark
A registered trademark in India will open the gateway to attain trademark certificates from other countries across the globe. It will make you eligible to fill out forms, applying for the trademark in many other countries.
What Documents Are Necessary To Submit For Trademark Registration?
Show Your Identity And Business Proof
You have to submit any of your identity proofs like voter id, ration card, ADHAAR card, driving license, etc. to the trademark office along with legal entity, partnership authority, and the form for trademark registration.
Form-48
Form-48 approves an attorney to place the registration appeal for the trademark to the Government. One has to submit a signed form 48 to the Trademark Registration Office.
How Long Can The Procedure Of Trademarking Take?
The application submission procedure to get the registered trademark doesn’t take time, you can do it instantly by yourself or hire an agency, who will do it for you. Once you have submitted the application, you can use the unregistered trademark symbol. But, the government takes almost 18-24 months to validate the registration and issue a certificate for your trademark.
How To Register A Trademark For E-Commerce Business
The trademarking procedure would not take your blood, sweat, and tears. It just requires your patience. Following are the simple steps to register a trademark for e-commerce business.
Do The Trademark Searching
You have come out with an amazing brand name and designed a mesmerizing logo for your business, after taking the suggestion from others and searching over the internet for ideas. But, what would happen if another company has that brand name and logo already registered? This means, only having a unique brand name and logo is not enough, they have to be distinct from others. Before you jump on the wagon of how to get a registered trademark, conduct a trademark search, first. A thorough trademark search will help you to know whether there are other companies having the same brand name, the logo already trademarked, or not. In this way, you can check the availability of your brand name and logo, clearing out the boulders on the way to get a registered trademark.
Class Selection
In the trademark register of India, all the goods are registered under near about 45 specified classes. For instance, the cars fall under automobile class, for the electronic goods, there is another class, etc. You should check out your products or business belongs to which class, and then register your brand name, logo under that particular class.
Fill Out The Trademark Application Form
Only when you make it sure that your brand name and logo is not registered in the trademark registry in India, you will become eligible to fill out the form of trademark registration. The first step is to fill out the application form, mentioning all the required details regarding your business, your identity, business location, etc. You have to fill out the form cautiously, putting all the relevant information to it; if you miss a single detail, your application will fall under the rejection. You can submit the application form to any trademark registration office in your state. In India, the trademark offices are in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. If the form filling seems to be too difficult for you, you can easily find help from an agency, who will do it for you. They will ask you all the details of your business, fill out the form, and submit it to the registration office.
Get The Trademark Number
Once your trademark application gets filed, the register will provide you with a trademark (TM) number. What is the importance of TM number? Well, the TM number will help you to track the status of your application as well as the number will allow you to use the trademark symbol to your brand name, logo, advertisement punch line, numerals, etc. From now on, people will know that you are on the way to get a trademark for e-commerce business, and this will restrain them from copying your brand or logo.
Trademark Scrutinizing Process
After you have successfully filed your application, it will go through a thorough scrutinizing procedure. This scrutinizing process can take up to 18 months, as the examiner will check and evaluate all the details of your business, one by one. The Scrutinizer will analyze whether your business is a valid one or not, check your brand name, logo, and your personal information like identity proof, address proof, etc. This scrutinizing process is the longest one in the whole trademark registration procedure. After conducting a proper evaluation, it is the scrutinizer, who will decide whether you can get a trademark for e-commerce business or your application deserves to be rejected.
Trademark Journal
You may think, from where the Trademark Journal pops its head out in the whole procedure of trademarking. Well, in case of unquestioning and absolute acceptance, your trademark will go to the publication mode, getting published in the Trademark Journal. But, after the scrutinizing procedure, if there are few doubts remain, then you will see them mentioned in the report, and you have to clear the doubts or conditions within 30 days. Once the authorities get satisfied with your conditions, they will feel that your business is eligible to get a trademark. Then they will send the trademark to the publication mode and publish it in the journal.
Get the Certificate
Once the registration process gets finished, you will get a certificate with the seal of the trademark office on it from the government of India. Thus, you have successfully earned a trademark for your e-commerce or other kinds of business. From now on you can use the trademark symbol to your brand name, logo, advertising tagline, etc.
Trademark Renewal
Your business trademark will be valid for the next ten years, and then you will need to renew the registration again. Trademark renewal is very crucial to keep your business safe under the trademark protection. So, never forget to renew your trademark registration once in ten years.
Ask An Agency For Help
The trademarking procedure is not that much difficult that from the beginning to the end, it will make you bang your head on the wall. Still, if you find any kind of difficulty, many agencies are out there to help you out of the situation. These agencies will collect your personal and business information, fill out the application form, prepare the form with your signing, and submit it to the office. In exchange, they will charge a negligible amount. All you need is to wait for the hearing.
Ask An Agency For Help
To conclude, we can say that, setting up an e-commerce business, and applying different marketing strategies to propel your business, is not enough. One must take consideration of e-commerce copyrights and trademarking procedure to secure his business, brand, logo and advertising taglines from the copycat. And getting trademark is not a tedious job to do, running from this office of authorities to the other. Just follow these upper-mentioned simple steps and get a trademark for e-commerce business. And if you think that your brand and logo is unique and special, then make it distinctive legally.
