Protect your IP rights: your company name matters
It is self-evident that a company’s name is of great value; this initially serves to identify you to the public and the company’s image will become linked to that name. Therefore protecting that name is vital from a commercial perspective.
Our trade mark team not only undertakes all the services you would expect from an intellectual property specialist boutique firm, such as clearance work, filing and prosecution, strategic advice and title updates, but now acts directly before the Company Names Tribunal division of the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) and Nominet.
The Company Names Tribunal acts as a forum to challenge the incorporation of a company name for parties who object to the selection of a company name. This could be because it overlaps with a name it has goodwill or reputation in. Equally, it could be because it believes the company name has been registered specifically to be sold at a profit.
Nominet provides a platform to challenge the registration of abusive “.co.uk” domain name registrations.
There is an increasing interplay between trade marks, company name registrations and domain names. When a business has chosen a “label” under which to present their company to the public, it is clearly important that this name can be protected from every angle and that all possible means of defending the rights in that name are considered.
The above additional services enable us to provide a centralised means of challenging and successfully enforcing our client’s intellectual property rights in their name. Please do contact your usual Barker Brettell trade mark attorney if you have any questions about company names or if you have concerns that your company name may be being used or registered by a third party.
