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If you are a footwear business in England, you will likely consider different forms of intellectual property protection. Therefore, knowing what is available and what kinds of intellectual property will assist your business the best is crucial. This article will discuss various types of intellectual property rights and the protection they can provide for your footwear business.
LegalVision’s Trade Mark Essentials Guide provides valuable information for any business looking to register or enforce a trade mark.
The Potential Usage of Trade Marks
Trade marks can take many forms, including:
- words;
- slogans;
- sounds;
- colours;
- symbols;
- logos; and
- a mix of any of the above.
How to Use Unregistered Trade Marks
If you create a logo for your business in the footwear industry, you can use it freely as long as you are not infringing another business’ intellectual property rights. However, you must always ensure you are not breaching another brand’s exclusive rights.
Unregistered trade marks are still able to gain protection rights in the UK. Although, if a competitor used your mark without consent, you would need to prove the trade mark belongs to your business and that you have created goodwill among the public concerning the trade mark. You will also have to prove the competitor using your mark harms your business. For instance, this may occur through financial or reputational loss.
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How to Use Registered Trade Marks
When registered, all types of trade marks are valuable tools for any business seeking to grow and expand, particularly in the footwear industry. This is because trade marks are commonly used as business or fashion brand identifiers through things like logos.
Registering a trade mark with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) provides your business with legally enforceable rights concerning your trade mark. This means you can challenge any competitor that attempts to copy your logo. Concerning footwear businesses, the most famous examples of how trade marks can be used are:
- the Nike tick;
- the Adidas wording on trainers; or
- the inverted CC symbol on Chanel footwear.
These trade marks all identify the relevant brand, which is important because consumers will associate their marks with their trust in the business. Hopefully, this will encourage sales. It also makes your products highly identifiable among a group of like minded products. For example, if your logo is on a pair of trainers, it will be easy to pick out a group of trainers with no prominent symbol or logo.
Furthermore, registered trade marks are easy to protect because of the legal enforcement rights you obtain upon registration. For example, if a competitor uses your registered trade mark without consent, you can contact them and ask for an agreement to stop the usage. If that does not work, you can enforce your rights through a mediation process or formally through the courts. Further, if you decide to do this, you can obtain compensation for any loss you have sustained.
Design Rights
Another helpful type of intellectual property protection for footwear businesses is design rights. These protect the visual appearance of a product that you have created—for instance, your shoe designs.
In the same way as unregistered trade marks, unregistered design rights exist automatically. The shape and configuration of your footwear design will be protected automatically for either ten years after it has been sold or 15 years after its creation, whichever period finishes soonest.
Once you have registered your design rights, you can choose to protect the visual appearance of your footwear design entirely or partially. You will obtain exclusivity over that design, and it will be added to a public list of registered designs. In the same way as registered trade marks, if a competitor copies your registered design, you can enforce your intellectual property rights (IP rights) through court and seek compensation. It is much easier to do this when the design right is registered, as they have to check the database of designs to confirm it is yours.
Key Takeaways
Two of the most important types of intellectual property protection that exist in footwear businesses are trade marks and design rights. Trade marks can take the form of:
- words;
- slogan;
- colours; or
- even sounds.
In contrast, design rights protect the visual appearance of your design. Both can exist in unregistered and registered forms. However, registered forms undoubtedly offer greater legal protection and are easier to enforce against a competitor who infringes on your intellectual property rights.
If you need help with trade mark or design rights registration, our experienced intellectual property lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.
Frequently Asked Questions
To register your trade mark, you need to place an application to the Intellectual Property Office. It would help if you got assistance before making any application, as it is better to ensure a successful application.
Design rights are created automatically when you create a new product. They protect your product’s visual appearance and therefore are helpful to deter competitors from copying your business. You should register your design rights to maximize your legal protection, as it is harder to prove design rights in their unregistered form.
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