Brand Protection

Due to the changing consumer behaviours & increased activity of counterfeiters, brand owners worldwide are now facing hitherto unheard of challenges. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how owners of brands can protect a brand & maintain its value.

Reviewing a Brand

It may sound trivial but the first thing brand owners should do is review their IP portfolio in order to:

• ensure the protection they require;
• ensure that their brand is registered properly;
• ensure that they won’t be paying for the renewal of rights which are no longer relevant.

Protecting a Brand

Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, businesses worldwide are taking steps to change their modus operandi, and that sometimes applies to the products & services that they offer. For instance, fast food restaurants & coffee shops are providing delivery services, producers of skincare products & alcoholic beverages are manufacturing hand sanitizers, and clothes manufacturers are producing face masks. To reach their target audience directly, manufacturers of different coronavirus products are creating websites or selling their produce through well-known platforms, such as eBay or Amazon. 

Very often, businesses like these haven’t taken steps to ensure comprehensive trademark protection for their brand. If, for instance, they previously sold their products via a network of 3rd party retailers and are now launching a website for the same purpose, then they should take care of protecting a trademark in this extra class as well. 

Also, UK & EU businesses that rely on supplies from abroad, and especially from China & South East Asia, for their operation should ensure protection of their supply chain. And that involves registering a trademark in the countries where their goods are being produced. Given all that, businesses would be well advised to:

• make a review of their trademark protection;
• update their main trademark protection so that it is applicable to all new products/services & countries where those products/services are manufactured. 

Watching

Monitoring & protection of IP assets in tumultuous times was, is & will be of paramount importance. Scammers of all kinds are bound to take advantage of any weaknesses they may identify in your brand protection. Therefore, it is absolutely vital that you take steps to ensure protection of brand assets in your target countries. 

Given that consumers are now spending more time online, fraudsters & counterfeiters are launching websites for promoting & selling poor-quality imitations. Therefore, it is really important that brand owners pay attention to properly registering domain names containing their brand, identical names & misspellings. Doing so will enable them to identify any fake websites & have them shut down & recover or cancel a domain name.

Enforcing Brand Protection Online

As more & more well-known brands are moving online, there is a risk that counterfeiters & fraudsters may use their name for non-authentic brand extension. Another challenge involved in protecting a brand is combating advertising of counterfeit products in social media where consumers may have a hard time determining whether a product is genuine or not. 

Quite a few online platforms & social media networks have effective mechanisms in place enabling them to deal with traders that fail to observe IP rights of brand owners. Resources like these rely on effective administration, especially if there are multiple brands are available on multiple platforms. 

Conclusion

Duer to rapidly evolving consumer behaviors, businesses are discovering new opportunities for expanding their product lines & changing ways in which they provide their products to their clients. Therefore, they need to make sure that they have taken steps to protect a trademark & brand name.