The main reason why you should register a trademark is to protect your business (name) from infringement by competitors, and to ensure that your trademark is still available.
You can be sued by a trademark owner without registration and have to pay compensation.
In addition, it protects against competition and possible counterfeiting or piracy by competitors. You can also use the Ⓡ sign. Legally, this sign does not have immediate value, but it gives customers confidence and acts as a deterrent to competitors.
If you are interested in a logo/trademark registration we would like the following information:
- Are you interested in registering in Benelux, or the whole of Europe?
- Do you want a name (word) and/or logo(figurative) or combination of both (figurative mark containing word elements)?
- What goods or services are you going to produce/market under this name/logo?
For Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) trademark
Our service fees are:
- Extensive trademark search 1850 euros(optional)
- Filing a trademark application in one to three classes (10 years), 795 euros (including 248 euros official fee, excluding VAT)
- For more than 3 classes, each extra class (10 years), 100 euros (including 39 euros official fee, excluding VAT).
For European Union Trademark Registration (28 countries)
Our service fees are:
- extensive trademark search 1850 euros (optional)
- filing a trademark application in one class, 1450 euros (including 850 euros official fee, excluding VAT)
- For each extra class, 250 euros (including 150 euros official fee, excluding VAT)
The whole procedure usually takes 7-12 months.
We can register your Trademark in Europe in 5 simple steps
The whole procedure usually takes 7 – 8 months, but it depends on the complexity of your application.
Notes:
1. One thing you need to pay special attention to is that, if your EU trademark application is found to conflict with the existing trademark in any single EU country, the EU trademark application will be rejected as a whole.
2. If the search results show conflicts with existing trademarks in any EU country (Step 3), or if a valid rejection is heard within the three-month notice period (Step 4), your application will be rejected. However, after rejection for EU trademark, you can still apply for trademark registration in each individual European country. You can also apply for the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) trademark directly.
The difference between Copyright and Trademark
An intellectual property nowadays can be worth a lot. Sometimes it even is the most valuable asset of a company. Intellectual property includes logos, slogans, written documents and/or artistic work. How do you protect these assets? To protect your intellectual property there are several options. The most important options are the Copyright and Trademark.
Trademark
As mentioned above, your brand name, logo, slogans etc. can be worth a lot of money. They are worth being trademarked. When the Trademark is registered and it is used by another company, you can take legal steps against this third party for improper use.
When the Trademark is registered by a company, this company has the exclusive rights to use it. In most countries this protection lasts for 10 years. The Trademark protection can be renewed for 10 years each time. There are 3 ways to register your Trade Mark:
1. With only Dutch coverage
2. With coverage in the Benelux
3. With coverage in the EU
Other questions that are relevant are:
- Do you want a name (word) and/or logo(figurative) or combination of both (figurative mark containing word elements)?
- What goods or services are you going to produce/market under this name/logo?
Most of our customers choose trademark registration with global coverage since they are global entrepreneurs.
We can register a trademark for you. The registration takes approximately 7 to 8 months for a registration that covers the whole EU. A worldwide registration may take longer and is more costly.
A Trademark can be sold. Meaning that the Trademark can be used by another company. Selling a trademark requires a Trademark licensing agreement. These kinds of agreements can be complex. We can help you draw up these agreements.
Copyright
A copyright protects original work including literature, music, and other intellectual work. Other than with a Trademark, a copyright does not have to be registered. The intellectual work is copyrighted automatically when it is created. You can make other people aware of your copyright by adding “ all rights reserved “ or © to the work you created. This may help prevent other people using or abusing your work.
To be communicated, the work has to be published somewhere so that third parties can find it.
Registration is only necessary when a company wants to sue a third party over the use of the copyrighted material by a third party. The registration of the copyright is instant. We can help you with this registration.
The protection of a copyright lasts a lot longer than a Trademark. In EU-countries, copyright protects intellectual property up to 70 years after the death of the owner. Outside of the EU, in countries taking part in the Berne convention, a copyright protects the intellectual property until 50 years after the death of the owner.
The difference
Trademarks and copyright both provide protection on the use of intellectual property. The difference is that they protect different types of intellectual property. Trademarks protects items helping to define a company brand, for example: logos, brand names, slogans etc.
Copyright on the other hand, protects literary and artistic work, for example: books, videos etc.
We can help you with all issues regarding intellectual property, such as the registration of your trademark and copyright.
How We Work
In order to register your Trademark or claim Copyright we will need to know more details about what you want to protect and where you want to cover it.
We will start by doing an intake with you to determine whether you need Trademark, copyright or both and to determine where you should claim it geographically.
