Your customers' perception and feelings about your business, products, and services together shape your brand image. How can you ensure that the brand you have spent so much effort and money to build is not infringed? Today, let's talk about how to protect your brand in Canada.
The value of a brand is more than just its image
Building a brand image is a very important part of marketing.
Your brand name, product and service names, slogan, logo, tagline and even voice mark – together they create the brand identity that your customers know.
A distinctive brand helps you stand out from your competitors and helps increase your customer loyalty. In fact, over time, as customers gradually recognize, understand, accept, recommend, and be loyal to your brand, it will create additional value for your business. This value is that you can even use it to bargain with banks and other lending institutions.
Importance of trademarks to sales
Protecting your brand and the products and services it represents is vital to your future sales efforts. A trademark is an important part of your brand, and registering it will provide you with exclusive rights to sell your products and services.
Trademarks include letters, words, logos, product and service names, slogans, etc. If you don't do a good job of protecting your trademark, competitors can use your trademark or a similar trademark, which can confuse your customers.
Five reasons to register a trademark
- After registering a trademark, it legally means that the trademark belongs to you.
- It gives you the exclusive right to use your trademark in Canada for 15 years (which you can renew indefinitely).
- It prevents others from using confusingly similar marks.
- It allows you to report copyright infringement by others.
- It gives you the power to dictate who can use your trademark and under what circumstances, and you can use it to make money and increase brand awareness.
Search for existing trademarks
Before registering a trademark, you need to make sure your trademark is different from other trademarks. If you have found a trademark that is suitable for your business, the first step is to search the Canadian trademark database to see if it is available. This way, you can avoid investing time, money and energy into a trademark that may not be available in Canada.