How to File a Trademark for Fashion Brand Start to End

Starting up your own clothing line? Here's why you need to trademark it

If you lot're starting up your own clothing line, yous'll have put hours and hours into designing, creating and branding your products. And as any experienced clothing line entrepreneur will tell you, information technology's imperative to consider trademarking your products. From a legal perspective, this is what makes your make a brand — and also what keeps it safe from copycats.

It tin exist difficult navigating this process though, and so here, we'll take you through how your clothing line tin benefit from trademarking, and how to annals a trademark of your ain.

What exactly is trademarking?

In short, a trademark is a sign that distinguishes one company's product or service from another. We can easily tell 1 make'south t-shirt apart from another — even if the garments themselves are quite similar — considering the onetime will have a dissimilar logo or design to the other. This logo will typically be trademarked, and gives customers a guarantee of receiving the quality they look from their preferred manufacturer.

You'll also likely accept seen the registered trademark symbol placed alongside trademarks on endless occasions (eastward.g. Companies Fabricated Unproblematic®).

That beingness said, trademarks can be applied to whatever of the following:

Words.
Sounds.
Logos.
Colours.
Whatever combination of the above.

As a manner line creator, you'll likely be most interested in trademarking brand names, collection names and logos — and so allow'southward take a closer look at how your clothing line can benefit from trademarking.

How does a clothing make benefit from trademarking?

The primal motivation for registering a trademark is to reduce the chance of counterfeiters ripping off your designs. If you become aware that someone is doing this, having the trademark in place will enable you to pursue legal action (and then provide y'all with trademark protection).

What'due south more, with a trademark, you'll likewise exist able to put the ® symbol side by side to your brand, which tells others not to use it. It likewise makes information technology possible for you to sell or license the brand to another party.

Even if you lot don't stop up having to settle whatever legal disputes with counterfeiters, trademarking is probably worth the try for your peace of mind alone. In one case you've registered a trademark, it'll be set in stone for the side by side ten years.

The just existent downsides to trademarking are the time and costs involved. Applications usually accept effectually 4 months to process — and potentially far longer if someone raises an objection. The costs of registering a trademark can also become off-puttingly high for smaller businesses.

How to annals a trademark

If you lot've already weighed upwardly the pros and cons of registering a trademark and decided to go ahead and protect your brand, here'due south the info yous need to know nigh the trademark awarding:

Each nation manages trademarking through its ain International Belongings Function (in the UK, ours is chosen The Intellectual Holding Role of the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland — or UKIPO for brusk).

You tin complete the trademark registration, renew or manage a Great britain trademark via their website . Registering a trademark for ane product class costs £200, and then an added £l for every additional class you wish to apply the trademark to — where product classes refer to the types of product to which trademarks tin be applied. In terms of mode products, these range from talocrural joint boots and ascots to waistcoats and wetsuits .

Every national International Property Office comes under the umbrella of the Earth Intellectual Belongings Arrangement (WIPO), a United Nations agency founded in 1967 "to promote the protection of intellectual belongings throughout the earth".

The just nations not currently signed upwards to WIPO are the Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands, Southward Sudan and Palestine.

There are two options for registering an international trademark with WIPO:

Utilise via WIPO'south Madrid Organization : with this choice, businesses tin file a single application and pay one set up of fees to apply for protection in the 117 countries covered by the System.
Apply via UKIPO : this option as well uses the Madrid System, and the aforementioned WIPO fees will apply. You'll as well have to pay a £40 admin fee to UKIPO.

International trademark fees start from 653 Swiss francs (that'due south equivalent to nearly £514 at the time of writing), so nosotros'd merely propose going downwardly this route if yous plan on selling plenty of garments overseas.

Rules and regulations to bear in heed

It's important to remember that you won't necessarily be successful in registering a trademark simply considering yous've submitted your application — there are also various rules and regulations y'all'll need to fulfil. Some of the primal criteria for wear lines include:

Don't utilize offensive words or imagery.
Don't mislead customers (eastward.grand. by including the give-and-take 'homemade' in a fast style brand name.
Don't use images resembling existing state symbols like flags and hallmarks.

For obvious reasons, it's as well crucial that your trademark is not also similar to any existing ones. You lot can find out whether this is the case by completing a trademark search with the UKIPO Trade Marker Database (if you're trademarking in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland ) or if you're registering an international trademark, by using WIPO's Global Brand Database .

Enforcing your trademark

Ultimate, responsibility for enforcing a trademark — including identifying infringements and reporting them via a local trading standards service — rests with the trademark owner. Major mode companies oft employ specialist intellectual property solicitors to manage their infringement cases, then information technology'due south important to exist careful.

Is your wearable line fix and set to get?

Trademarking is just ane part of the procedure fashion entrepreneurs must get through to set up every bit a legitimate concern. From the registration procedure for a limited company to getting your accounting in order, we can assist with the whole process.