Attorney at Law for Trademark Law in Saarbrücken
Request direct help from trademark attorney Anne-Kathrin Renz from Saarbrücken.Trademark registration and trademark protection
A trademark serves to distinguish the goods and services of one company from those of a (competing) company. brand can be protected in the form of a logo, a name, a company name, or a character sequence. Trademark rights are also referred to as intellectual property.
Registering a trademark grants the owner monopoly rights. This is comparable to ownership of an object. The trademark owner can prohibit third parties from using their trademark for the registered goods and/or services in commercial transactions.
The most common types of trademarks include:
- wordmarks
- Word/figurative marks
- figurative marks
- Sound marks and color marks
The owner of such a trademark can do whatever he wants with the trademark, use it, license it or sell it.
The trademark lawyer will initially assist you in reviewing your planned trademark application.
Above all, a careful examination of the trademark's registrability and conducting a trademark search are required. This is because the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) does not, for example, examine whether the trademark infringes third-party intellectual property rights. Such grounds for refusal are also called relative grounds for refusal.
Summary:
A trademark lawyer checks:
- The existence of absolute obstacles to protection
- The conflict of relative barriers to protection
A trademark lawyer will advise you:
- When searching for the appropriate brand type/brand strategy
- When drawing up a list of goods and services
Your own brand at a fixed price:
Defense against trademark warnings
If someone uses someone else's trademark without authorization, it can quickly become expensive. In trademark cases, the value in dispute is rarely less than €50,000. This is often due to the particular economic interest in preserving the trademark.
The primary enforcement objective is the injunctive relief. This is asserted out of court in the form of a warning letter. Warning letters are rarely announced in advance, and those receiving the warning letter are often offended. Not every warning letter is justified; those affected are usually unable to properly assess this themselves. Legal advice is therefore essential, as both the person receiving the warning letter and the person issuing the warning letter can make mistakes that can quickly become very costly.
Trademark warning – what is it?
The warning serves as an out-of-court enforcement of the injunction. This usually arises from Section 14, 15 Trademark Act. A variety of infringements are possible. For example, the infringement may involve advertising a product or selling a product.
The trademark owner alerts the infringer to the infringement with a cease-and-desist letter. They usually set a very short deadline, as trademark cases are generally urgent matters. They demand a cease-and-desist declaration, subject to penalty, and usually also provide information from the alleged infringer. They also demand legal fees and/or damages.
Anyone who receives a legitimate warning letter must bear the costs. Therefore, it's always important to carefully examine whether the warning letter was justified.
Action against trademark infringements
A trademark license agreement allows the transfer of usage rights. The trademark owner can thus allow others to use their trademark. The scope of the transferred rights should be precisely defined.
For example, the contract specifies:
- Trademark owners/licensors and licensees
- Information about the trademark, legal status, registration number, etc.
- Protected goods and services, subject matter of the contract
- License type (exclusive or simple)
- Limitations of a spatial, temporal and content nature
- Quality standards
- License fees
- Confidentiality clauses
- And much more.
Request legal advice now!
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