this video I want to take a look at trademarks in Ireland and what the law
is and how you register trademark many small businesses our medium businesses
have a need or should have a need to register perhaps a trademark because it
can be in valuable intellectual property so let's take a look look at the law in
Ireland in relation to trademarks and how you go about registering a trademark
firstly what is a trademark trademark is the means by which a business identifies
its goods or services and distinguishes them from the goods and services
supplied by other businesses by competitors so the trademark Act of 1996
is the relevant piece of legislation in Ireland I need to find this trademark as
unassign came in being represented graphically which is capable of
distinguishing the goods or services of one hundred taking from those of other
undertakings the trademark may consist of words including personal names
designs logos letters numerals or the shape of goods order packaging or other
signs or indications that are capable of distinguishing the goods or services of
one undertaking from those of others so the legs of the three pointed star for
that you see on a mercedes benz car or lead the BMW logo or sign they are
trademarks and they distinguish one car one type of car from another from from
cars of competitors and nobody's gonna confuse the trademark or the
three-pointed star of the mercedes benz for example with the volkswagen sign or
logo or the ford sign or the BMW sign not all trademarks can be registered
however ether mark is not capable of being represented graphically or not
capable of distinguishing goods or services of one business from those of
other businesses cannot be registered swap eregistry if it does not have a
distinctive character it won't be registered if they consists exclusively
of signs that designate essential characteristics
of goods or services for example their quality intended purpose geographical
the origin etc in other words if it says best solicitor then it's likely to be
not capable of registration or best tripura store best dentist the likes of
those phrases wouldn't necessarily identify or distinguish one provider one
solicitor one dentist from another if the bar consists exclusively of signs or
indications which are customary in the language in the trade will be registered
won't be registered also if it consists exclusively of the shape arising from
the goods themselves or oak which is necessary to obtain a technical result
or give a substantial value to the goods it won't be registered if it's contrary
to public policy or principles of morality so there are other if it's
applied for in bad faith the trademark application for registration will be
also refused and we refuse a rigid ethical width or similar to a trademark
did that is already on the register in respect of my debt here or similar goods
and which would therefore give rise to confusion in the minds of the consumer
why would you register a trademark well it creates an official record of you
rates that's order of the particular trademark and it makes it easier to
prevent others from using it it also grants you a statutory right subjecting
certain conditions to prevent others from using the trademark without your
permission so to prevent infringement likewise it concerns an exclusive right
to authorize others by means of licensing so you can actually license
your trademark once you've registered as if you wish and trademark registration
is not obligatory however I just took aback and licensing the likes of Burger
King or McDonald's or some franchise operations or gonna register their
trademarks but they're also going to license their use as part of their
franchise operation franchise package an unregistered trademark if you use a
particular brand for some period of time then you may actually have an
unregistered trademark and if someone for infringes your brand or trademarks
you still have legal recourse to protect your trademark however if you hadn't
registered you're probably going to be in a stronger position the benefits of
registration then are if you don't register you can only rely on a common
law action called passing off in order to protect your rights whereas if you
register the trademark you've got the statutory protection in accordance with
the trademark Act of 1996 you'll also protect your identity or the
business identity and goodwill it will be proof of your ownership of that
particular intellectual property right of your business or of your trade
it will protect you against other businesses whose products or services
are defective and who trade in the industry so to distinguish your
particular offering your services and goods from others and it will protect
against others using similar trademarks the application for trademark Daniel
Ireland is made to the Patent Office in check any any person or company who uses
or proposes to use a trademark can apply to register a trademark he can be doing
online on the patents office website as I say or you can do it by paper
application or if you get a solicitor or a trademark agent to do it for you the
minimum requirements basically if you know a prescribed application for them
which you'll find on the patents office website you have to put in obviously the
name and address of the person requesting registration you have to put
in the actual trademark so that would be your logo or perhaps a formulation of
words that are showing one in a minute that I have actually just registered or
you need also to set out the class of goods or services that you're looking
from protection in so if I'm a solicitor and I'm looking to register a particular
trademark and I did so fairly recently well then I'm gonna be looking for
protection in a class of services involving the provision of legal
services that don't care about painting and decorating for example or dentistry
or if it's your therapy or anything of that nature so you pick your class and
the number of classes that you pick number of categories of protection that
you're looking for that will determine to an extent what the fee to the Patent
Office will be the application will be done examined by the Patent Office as to
its register ability so they essentially do a search against your trademark and
against to see whether they're similar or identical trademarks already
registered either here or abroad and then you know decide whether having a
regard for the previous criteria I mentioned there were a few it can happen
whether you're gonna be granted the trademark registration or not if you
refuse you will get a chance to put your case put your side of the story put
forward why you should be loners and the partners office is often two arguments
logical rational arguments or alternatively you could amend your
application so it may be obvious from the feedback that you get from the
threatens refusal that you get what you actually need to do so you may need to
add or subtract something from your trademark application if it's accepted
then the application is accepted for registration details of the mark will be
published in the Official Journal this is an ad that goes into the Official
Journal of the Patent Office or trademark office or what have they
called them and just three months then for anybody to register an objection and
send in a no herself so on each side then the applicant on the opponent it
would be given an opportunity to file evidence in support of its case at the
question of whether the mark should be registered is ultimately a matter for
senior official on the Patent Office how long's it last initially ten years but
it can be renewed so it can actually last indefinitely so if you feel that
this intellectual property would be useful for your business then it's
something that you should consider doing registering a community trademark that
is my elective across the EU it's effective across 27 EU states the great
thing about the community trademark is that you only have to make one
application you don't have to apply 27 States you're playing one and the single
application will do for all 27 states and any new members
you also have one single administrative center and your own language
deal with clearly that's a very very cost-effective application rather than
go to different states looking to register your particular trademark in
each of the states in order to maintain your trademark your community trademark
you'd have to use it in at least one member state within five years of
registration but using it in only one member state will allow you to maintain
your community trademark across the European community an example of a
trademark is one that I actually registered myself fairly recently it's
not phrase did you see there the man to see so I've registered as a trademark
thankfully who's accepted I will now use that on a lot of my online marketing and
my websites and perhaps in some of my literature and perhaps my Facebook pages
and so on I can you know but clearly the mantasy is in the trailer and I just
happen to like think it's effective enough and I want to associate it with
me so that people who under searching online will actually assume that I am
actually the mantasy way because it says so my name is territory of an Enfield I
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