When applying for trademark registration, do not forget about the author

Upon seeing a word or word-figurative trademark, do we wonder who really has the exclusive right to use it? The applicants are hardly ever the creators of a trademark. More frequently, a logo is purchased form a graphic designing studio or a repository of files (e.g. Shutterstock). However, such purchase does not mean the acquisition of material copyrights to the form of expression of the mark.

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The devil is in the details, or from when one should count the 5-year period, during which it is possible not to use one’s trade mark without consequences?

Our clients frequently ask the question when exactly the obligation to start to use a trade mark arises, or in other words, from when the absence of genuine use may render the mark vulnerable to declaring lapse due to non-use. The continuous period, after which the holder of registration is at the latest obliged to put his mark to genuine use, in order to avoid negative consequences for its exclusive right, lasts 5 years.

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