Trademark definition: A trademark may be your most valuable business asset. It is a mark (usually a name or logo, sometimes a tagline or even a colour or 3D shape) that represents your goods or services and distinguishes them from other traders’ products and businesses. A trademark is a form of intellectual property, which may belong to an individual or a business entity. Trademarks registered with the intellectual property office of a country enjoy legal trademark protection in that specific country.

You can identify your trademark in your marketing collateral by using the superscript TM symbol: ™. However, if you have a registered trademark, you are permitted to use the registered trademark symbol, the superscript R symbol inside a circle: ®. This puts other traders on notice that you have a trademark registration.

In Australia, a trademark application must be submitted to the Australian intellectual property office (IP Australia) to be examined and approved by them. You can only use the registered trademark symbol ® after all the necessary steps of the trademarking process are complete and your trademark has been registered.

You need to register a trademark in every country where you want legal trademark protection. We also provide services in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).

You can apply for the following types of trademarks via Trademarks Online.

• Brand names

• Slogans/phrases

• Logos

If you want to register a non-traditional trademark (such as a 3D shape, jingle or smell), you should get professional advice from a trademark lawyer about how to do this.

A trademark registration gives you the exclusive right to use that trademark for the specific goods and services you’ve registered it for.

Here are 5 more reasons: Why should I register my trademark?

It protects you from a competitor mimicking your products and passing them off as theirs and causing confusion or harm to your business reputation.

When you establish a new business, trademark protection might not be top of mind, but as your business grows and succeeds, your brand can become a very valuable asset, which you need to protect.

A registered trademark gives you legal grounds to take action to defend your trademark from infringement by anyone who uses the same or a confusingly similar mark. Your registered business name and logo will set your brand or business apart from competitors and protect you from copycats!

A registered trademark will give you peace of mind. It also sends a powerful message to your customers that you believe that your brand is worth protecting. It's an investment worth making, before it's too late.

Do you need to trademark a logo or get a trademark business name? Let’s look at how to trademark a name.

You need to follow the legal process set out by the Australian Trademark Office. Our website was created by trademark lawyers who know the trademark process and the necessary requirements inside-out! We created this platform to cut the red-tape and make trademark registration online quick and easy for anyone. You don’t need a lawyer and you don’t need to struggle with a tedious, clunky trademark application process. As our customers confirm, it’s painless, with Trademarks Online.

We have reduced the application procedure to four easy steps.

If you also wish to register your trademark other countries, you can follow a similar process in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).

If you wish to register a trademark in other countries then please get in touch and let us know which countries you are interested in. We'll reply to you with more information.

Trademarks Online is part of the Trademark Planet group. It was built by IP lawyers who have a wealth of experience in intellectual property, including trademarks, patents, branding and copyright.

With decades of local and international experience in the IP world, we know the challenges of the trademark registration process inside-out. We built Trademarks Online to remove the common pitfalls and to make the process to register a trademark as smooth as possible.

Once you have determined the trademark you'd like to protect in Australia, Trademarks Online is the ideal place to do this. Our online application service will make the trademark application hassle-free.

Check out About Us

As our tagline says: Trademarks Online is the fastest, easiest way to protect your brand. Our customer testimonials confirm that this is true.

Registering a trademark can be a time-consuming, complicated process if you try doing it yourself on government websites using systems that are not intuitive to individuals, who are not trademark attorneys.

Without our intelligent classification software, you could leave out details. Your application might not include all the correct goods and services classes to ensure that you protect your brand adequately.

It is much more expensive to employ trademark lawyers to do the application for you.

Trademarks Online's groundbreaking software helps you create your goods and services specifications by providing you with relevant approved goods and services in a flash. We offer a fully-automated, self-service solution. No lawyers required.

Trademarks Online is a fast, affordable 4-step process.

Being a startup itself, Trademarks Online appreciates that cost certainty and value for money are two huge factors when protecting your brand. As we've said, you don't pay for lawyers to do the work each time. We did that for you. Check out our pricing page.

After Trademarks Online has submitted your Australian trademark application, we'll email you progress updates:

1. if the Trademark Office approves and then publishes your application

We'll let you know the good news by email!

2. if your application faces a trademark objection to the wording of the goods and/or services

We'll fix it for no charge and will let you know by email.

3. if your application receives other sorts of objections

Your application may be held up if:

another person or company has an earlier trademark registration which is identical or confusingly similar to your trademark;

your trademark does not satisfy the Trademark Office criteria for registration; or

another person or company formally submits a trademark opposition to the registration of your trademark.

If this happens, we'll email you a copy of the letter from the Trademark Office, and we have a team of consultants on board to provide you with options at no cost.

If your trademark application does not satisfy the requirements of the Trademark Office, then your trademark application won't be able to proceed to acceptance or registration.

We are committed to helping businesses successfully register trademarks. You are welcome to get in touch anytime during business hours.

4. if your trademark is registered

This comes after acceptance and after expiry of the trademark opposition period. We'll email you the trademark registration certificate and explain how to renew your trademark in due course. You will be a trademark registrant, and you can then use the registered trademark symbol ® with your trademark!

Completing Trademarks Online's simple four step process takes a matter of minutes (depends how fast you are!).

Trademarks Online will submit your trademark application with the Australian Trademark Office within one business day.

How long will it take before my trademark is registered? This article and its infographic diagram explains each stage of the process in more detail.

Your application will be examined by the Trademark Office - usually within four months - and they'll let us know if it's approved or if there are objections.

Trademarks Online will report this to you by email and if there are any objections, we will let you know your options for dealing with them.

If you need to answer any Trademark Office objections, this part of the process can take anywhere from a day upwards to many months (if you are really slow). It depends on how fast you respond and how many questions the Trademark Office has for you.

Once the application is approved by the Trademark Office, then the application is published and 2 months allowed for others to object. They'd need a good reason though. Then your application is registered.

No, trademark application fees are non-refundable. We recommend preparing thoroughly before submitting your application.

We're here to help you through this process. If have any questions at all, you can call us at +61 (02) 8766 0666 or email hello.au@trademarkplanet.com

Trademark infringement is the unauthorized use of a trademark or a closely similar trademark in a way that is likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake about the source of the goods and/or services.

If you have a trademark registration, you can take action against anyone who infringes your trademark to stop them from using your trademark. If you don’t have a trademark registration, you may still be able to take action in these circumstances, but you will need to rely on fair trading legislation or the common law action of passing off, which can be more difficult to prove.

This is a proceeding in which someone opposes registration of your trademark application.

After your trademark application is accepted for registration by the Trademark Office, it is advertised for a time period ( two months in Australia) before it is registered. During this time, known as the opposition period, other parties can oppose registration by filing an opposition with the Trademark Office.

Here is an article with more information about trademark opposition.

Who can oppose a trademark application? Any individual, company or group can file an opposition to a trademark application. The opponent does not need to be the owner of a similar mark or have any commercial interest in the outcome in order to file the opposition.

What are grounds for a trademark opposition? The most common grounds for opposition are that the trademark lacks distinctiveness, is too similar to an earlier registered trademark and is likely to cause confusion - or that the trademark applicant is not the owner of the trademark.

Trademarks can exist indefinitely, provided that they are continuously renewed and are being genuinely used in trade. A trademark renewal must be submitted every ten years.

Trademarks can be renewed in the one-year period before the due date. If a trademark is not renewed before the renewal deadline, you will have a further six month grace period within which you can renew the trademark (extra fees may apply).

If you'd like to renew your trademark, feel free to get in touch with us.