A brand is an intellectual property that can individualize a product or service and make it recognizable in the market. In most cases, we are talking about the logo and name, creating which it is important not to infringe anyone's copyright.
Source: Flickr / jonas_therkildsen / CC BY-SA 2.0
General Provisions
The legislation of the post-Soviet countries does not establish such concepts as a logo, trademark or brand. All this is legally defined as a trademark and service mark (in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan) and a mark for goods and services (in Ukraine).
Registration of such a mark with an authorized body in the field of intellectual property is mandatory. The authorized bodies are:
- in Russia: Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent), website
- in Belarus: National Center for Intellectual Property, website
- in Kazakhstan: National Institute of Intellectual Property, website
- in Ukraine: State Department of Intellectual Property and Ukrpatent created under it, website
When submitting an application for registration of a mark to the authorized body, the applicant shall indicate the necessary goods or services for which such a mark will be used. A complete list of goods and services is contained in the International Classifier of Goods and Services (MKTU) and is divided into 45 classes.
The minimum cost of registration of a mark will be: in Russia - 23100 rubles, in Belarus - 1453.50 bel. rub., in Kazakhstan: 88054.23 tenge, in Ukraine - 3885 UAH. Prices are for a black-and-white verbal image for the 1st class of ICGS and include only state fees without paying for optional services, such as preliminary screening, acceleration, patent attorney services. With this filing, the period for obtaining a certificate will average up to one and a half years.
What if you do not register the sign
Without proper brand registration, there is a chance that at some point, under pressure from the copyright holder, competitor or patent troll, you will have to change the name of your product. On a habr wrote about such case. And if a claim from some patent trolls may look doubtful for the court, especially when your product is well recognized and presented on the market for a long time even without a trademark, then in other cases you can also get a claim for damages quite reasonably.
If there is no desire to bother with the registration of the mark and spend money on it, then a good and minimally controversial option may be to use commonly used elements that characterize your product or service. For example, the Navigator mobile app, the Jeans clothing store, the Online Dating website.
Even if you do not plan to register your future brand, it will not be amiss to conduct a search on publicly available databases of registered trademarks before using it:
- in Russia , the free version runs a search on the last two newsletters. To search the entire database of trademarks, you must register and pay for the service. The cost of 5 searches is 300 rubles. It’s easy to find informal free counterparts online, but the completeness of such registries and search engines can be questionable.
- in Belarus
- In Kazakhstan
- in Ukraine
- Worldwide
To check, just enter the name of your newly made brand and the class number of goods and services (optional). If similar protected signs are found for the right type of goods and services in the country you need, it is better to abandon the idea of using such a brand right away.
What is the result
As the survey shows, many do not even think about registering a sign for goods and services. This in no way interferes with the successful development of their products, since most still do not face serious legal consequences.
However, in each individual case, it is extremely important to assess the risks even before the start of using the mark in order to eliminate negative consequences and minimize possible damage. Ideally, of course, you should submit an application for registration of a mark before its use.