A trademark can be any sign suitable to be displayed graphically and to distinguish the goods or services of a business from those of other businesses.
The owner of a trademark can forbid any person to use the same or a similar sign to mark the same or similar goods or services without his explicit consent in the course of business.
Apart from word marks, figurative marks, and combinations of these, trademark protection can also be sought for non-conventional signs, such as the outer shape of products (three-dimensional trademark or shape mark), a certain color (color trademark), a certain sound (sound mark), or a certain arrangement of signs (positional mark). In order to prove the distinctiveness of such signs, it might be necessary to produce evidence of acquired distinctiveness.
A trademark application can claim priority of an earlier application, provided that the earlier application has been filed no more than six months before the filing date of the later application.
The duration of a trademark registration is ten years. It can be renewed every ten years by payment of a fee.
We regularly file more than a hundred trademarks for our clients every year and would be glad to advise you on the best filing strategy.
