7 Reasons Trademark Registration is Very Important for Your Startup

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of businesses out there offering the same or similar services. If you think of a restaurant, you will probably name more than five different restaurants at a glance without your breath pulsing. The sad reality of this phenomenon is that all businesses are geared toward targeting the same customers. Thus, trademarking your brand identity is important to set you apart from the crowd, prevent cyber squatters from profiting off your brand, and put a huge value on your brand identity

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Why Trademark Registration Is Important for Your Startup

Trademarks are vital assets for a business. It helps influence consumers’ buying behavior. Imagine walking into a store and finding two soft drink products: one with the inscription “produced by Coca-Cola” That brand recognition is key to coca-cola retaining its market leadership position.

Here are important reasons to better explain why trademark registration is important for your startup.

Trademarks can serve as an effective communication tool. 

If your brand is known for good products, then a trademark will definitely serve you better. Its presence in your product will help people connect with your brand on an emotional and intellectual level.

Once an item has been trademarked, it can appear and be recognized in any language. For example, the trademark of the American footwear designer and retailer Nike, “Swoosh,” can appear in any language and be recognized.

Trademarks make it easy for customers to identify you. 

There are thousands of other brands or similar brands in the marketplace. But a well-positioned trademark makes it much easier for your customers to find and patronize you.

With your trademark on a product, a customer can easily know that they are dealing with your product instead of another brand’s product. For instance, some customers may never buy footwear if it’s not from Nike. And without the presence of the “Swoosh” design on the product, it will be difficult for such a customer to recognize Nike’s product from the thousands of footwear brands out there. Therefore, it becomes critical to their buying decision.

A trademark serves as a brand’s asset. 

Over the years, we’ve seen that a company’s value is directly linked to how people think of its trademark. The more recognizable a trademark is, the more valuable the company is considered to be. This makes it easier for a brand to branch out into new areas and be bought by a bigger brand because it has a better reputation. This is what played out during the acquisition of Figma by Adobe.

A respected trademark can help bring the best staff to your organization. 

This is because being associated with such a brand elicits a positive emotion. It’s a known fact that the best of the best always want to be associated with the best. The best talents will always want to find themselves working for a good brand with a positive image.

Trademarks are inexpensive to obtain. 

In some countries, the cost of trademark registration can be as low as $200 USD. Furthermore, to prevent your business idea’s legality from being rubbed in the dirt,

It takes time for a trademark to expire. 

This long time period should give you time to save up and buy back the mark to keep your brand safe. In some countries, it takes up to seven years for a trademark to expire, with the option of renewing it for the next few years—say, 14 years—and so forth.

What does a trademark protect?

One most important rights that a trademark protects is the right to stop other businesses from using your trademark to sell their product or service. If your business is known for its excellent products, there is a high chance that other businesses will want to copy them and put your brand name on them to sell to customers. And because buyers trust your product, they will buy it even though it wasn’t produced by your brand. This can cause a bad image for your brand if things go wrong. But if you have a trademark, you can stop other people from using it to do business.

Finally, as you prepare to register your trademark, ensure that you consider the uniqueness of the mark you intend to trademark. The core aim of trade is to create market differentiation and protect the mark from being used by other businesses without your permission. Hence, you should endeavor to trademark unique items that can truly differentiate your brand from others.