According to Transaction Heroes, your trademark is a unique symbol that identifies your products and services. It's essential in helping your business establish goodwill among customers and partners and secure your brand from troubles such as counterfeit goods and more. However, while you may not have to worry about a trademark when running a local business, taking your business to an international level makes a trademark essential for a seamless breakthrough.
Sure Ways of Protecting Your Trademark When Selling Internationally
Because your symbol operates as the mark of your services and goods and identifies you with them as a means they don't belong to anyone else, protecting your trademark takes into considerations factors like:Choosing a Strong Symbol
Like big companies such as airlines and famous car models, you'll want customers to identify uniqueness in your goods and services. As such, the first thing to consider is settling for a trademark symbol people can't help but love. Think about successful brands like Samsung and others using names that engage and capture customers' attention of all age groups.According to the United States Organization of trademarks, Patent and Trademark Office, be sure you've come up with a name that raises eyebrows before anything else when selling internationally. Make the symbol and name unique for people to relate with, such as big brands like Nike and more. Also, while choosing the emblem and name, think about how international countries would translate to your brand and the trademark.
Make sure the name contains something unique about their lives, culture, and more. For instance, a good consideration is finding unique names or slang terms popularly used in the international regions you're fascinated about expanding your business to and use such terms as the name plus symbols that relate to them. Also, be sure the emblem and name contain meaning international customers will quickly connect and understand.
Register Your Trademark With International Authorities
Unless your trademark is recognized by international marketing authorities, marketing it to internal customers won't stop your business from being restricted to doing business in some places. As such, once you've selected a powerful symbol and name, the next thing you'll want to do is register it for recognition by the authorities.Additionally, protecting your trademark means getting it accepted and registered by overseas authorities such as the United States Trademark Office or USPTO. According to the USPTO, once you've registered your business with them, you're eligible and legally allowed to register your business's same symbol and name in any country of your choice within 180 days. Moreover, the office makes it hassle-free for you since they will guide you ongoing with your business to international levels by registering the same trademark in different countries right from the U.S registration offices.
Still, after you've registered with USPTO and spread the news to different countries by re-registering the same name, the next thing is to make sure your mark doesn't have many similarities with other businesses whatsoever. You can ensure this by doing an extensive search for other companies in the same industry.
Research About Your Target Markets and What Is Required per Country for Protecting Your Trademark
While the USPTO is the ultimate authority in permitting your business to sell internally, some individual countries have additional measures to be considered for your trademark to be safe. Therefore, make sure you've got reliable international collaborations and distribution channels in different countries to always understand the Dos and Don'ts of keeping your trademark safe.Some of the factors to consider here are questions like if an individual country permits you to sell online and more. Additionally, you'll want to know the majority of customers a nation has for you, especially if you'll have to pay taxes and more for doing business in such places. Researching will also help you determine the right target market and the future of your business in such countries.
Also, researching will help you know the cost of protecting your trademark from one country to another, enabling you to make informed decisions about which countries to register with first and those to come last. You may also want to keep off certain countries until your business is doing better than you've anticipated before moving to other countries, which can be challenging without a comprehensive understanding of the ins and outs of taking your business there.
