The essence of trademark watch service in Africa is to monitor new applications that have been filed at the trademark registry for any potential infringement on existing trademark.

 

Trademark Watch and Monitoring Services

Defending the exclusive use of the mark with an opposition proceeding is far less expensive and shorter than a litigation proceeding to request the cancellation of a registered trademark, hence the importance of having a watch service that provides information and facilitates taking action quickly and effectively against third parties.

Trademark Watch Services

This service allows the client to detect trademark applications at the publication stage, that are identical and may infringe the client’s registered Trademark.

The client will be informed on, the required information to file an opposition along with the probabilities of success to pursue the opposition of Trademark, or any other available remedy such as, the chance to execute the agreement for co-existence while ensuring the protection of Client’s registered trademark.

Trademark Watch Service Include

  • Monitoring of published trademarks that are similar, identical or have the same meaning.
  • Client will receive emails with all relevant information regarding any trademarks that are published and are similar, identical or have a similar meaning to your trademark.
  • Every notification will include the conflicting mark’s details, as well as the time-frames for presenting an Opposition.

Types of Trademark Watch Services:

The Trademark watch services provide you a global and regional aid in securing your Trademark. These services search for the marks that are infringing or may infringe the registered Trademark. Moreover, the services help the companies to avoid the misuse of their Trademark. There are basically 2 types of Watch Services:

  • Identical trademark watch

Identical Trademark watch services identify the marks that are visually identical or sound the same as the original mark. These services target the marks that are directly infringing the registered trademark.

  • Similar trademark watch

Similar Trademark Watch Services deal with the identification of the marks with a confusing resemblance to the original mark. These services target the marks that are indirectly infringing the original trademark.

Importance of Trademark Watch Services:

The Trademark Watch services prove beneficial to a company in numerous terms. Whenever a third party tries to infringe your registered Trademark, these services notify you. It helps you to take the required action in time. Some of the major benefits of the Services are:

  • The Services help the company to protect the intellectual property rights over their trademark or logo and prevent others from infringing the mark.
  • Notify and accord the owner of Trademark enough time to prepare an opposition and challenge proposed Trademark registrations which might infringe his rights.
  • Many companies don’t have the resources or time for continuously checking the market status in terms of trademark infringement. Thus, the Trademark Watch Services help the companies by handling the infringement protection part. Moreover, it allows the company to feed more time and efforts for their own betterment.
  • Marks identical or similar to the original trademark can affect the sale and reputation of the company. So, Services protect the rights of a company over the registered trademark and prevent other parties to use those rights.

Once the trademark is registered, it is advisable to further monitor the same so that no one uses your trademark illegitimately.

Additional Information;

At Abbay Attorneys, we safeguard your valuable brand and accurately respond to potential infringements with a full range of expert, local and international trademark watching. Our trademark watch services help our client’s to systematically uncover potential conflicts involving newly published trademark applications on an international level. We screen the Intellectual Property Journals and the newly filed marks are handed over in a timely manner to our clients so as to help them make the right business decisions.