Trademark Your Brand In Nigeria.
Essence:
To prevent a confusion of the customer/Client from confusing Your product/Service
with that of another.
The importance of registering a trade mark is very crucial in the corporate business space
and cannot be over-emphasised for all businesses, especially for start-ups whose
products and brands are easily cogniseable and duplicatable.
The way a business is perceived sometimes is even greater than the way the business
actually is. As humans, We are great creatures of perception and impressions. As You
accessed and are reading through the contents of Our website right now, We are sure
that pictures are already popping up in Your head as to who We are.
A lot of persons and organisations spend a fortune advertising, branding, marketing, creating a great product, distinguishing and excelling in the market place only for another
person/organisation to jump on the goodwill and take advantage of the sweat of
another person. This they do by trying to confuse the innocent customer/Client that the
imitation is the original by jumping on the bandwagon already painstakingly built by
another.
This remains the reason why a lot of Companies are perpetually at war – especially the
companies with the highest net-worth and turnovers in the world. Because Companies,
at some streak in prosperity will do all within their power to protect both the way they
are perceived and the maximum enjoyment of such perceptions.
The war between Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola has been one of the most popular wars
(most popular as the cola wars) and has lasted clearly for more than 100 Years at this
point. Both Companies have moved more than mountains in order to be able to protect
their coveted niche. A huge Honourable mention too is the perpetual war between
Apple Inc and Microsoft.
The realisation that in the commercial corporate space every single minute is very
instrumental and vital to the protection and growth of your business is clearly shown
in the protection of the secrets of trade of that business; any move you make could turn
your business into a multi-billion dollar business or your potential and ingenuity could
be lost to another person or enterprise entirely. A very vivid example is the emergence
of Coca-cola as the world’s most famous trademark.
In the year 1876, Coca-Cola which was the brainchild of John Doc Pemberton was
born, it is undoubtedly an everyday icon that is now in every corner of the world, We
are very sure that as you read this piece you may even have a coke bottle with the
Coca-Cola mark staring right at you, or better still turn 360 you will find a Coca-Cola
product around you.
Years before its existence, it was almost unfathomable that a drink merely created as a
medicine by John Doc Pemberton, an American pharmacist, will gain worldwide
traction and gigantic value like it has done.
It will also surprise you to know that the inscription, Coca-Cola is the hand writing of
John Doc Pemberton himself, as far back as 1876 he saw to it that the mark of the
product you now see today as Coca-Cola was duly trademarked, this simply means that
no other person, company, society, e.t.c can use or register that same trademark
registered by Coca-Cola or any part of the mark, or anything that looks like the mark,
or anything that is closely related with the mark.
Your trade mark is your business identity that distinguishes your business from your
competitors and other businesses alike in your field.
In Nigeria the law that governs the protection of trademark is the Trademarks act 2004,
CAP T13 LFN (Trademarks act) as amended and Trademarks Regulation 1967 which
makes enabling provisions for the reservation, registration and protection of the
exclusivity of a business mark.
Companies and individuals are always at liberty to get as many trademarks as they want
in order to prevent any form of imitation of the mark which can in-turn result in a huge
loss of business.
A lot of the Companies that are very popular are only popular because they know the
importance of trademarks and have taken it upon themselves to protect as many images
as possible that may by any stretch of imagination create a confusion in the mind of
any of their prospective customers/Clients as to whether they are having dealings with
them or with malevolent actors.
To this end, a lot of companies have thousands and hundreds of thousands of
trademarks registered as part of their intellectual properties and are always eager to sue
anyone that strays or tries to infringe upon any of their thousands upon thousands of
trademarks.
This therefore is a key document/step that a businessowner must take.
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