Digital marketing is the newest frontier and it presents some interesting opportunities and risks. Online marketing is replete with trademark infringements and it’s up to businesses to protect themselves. Registering your trademark can help your business build a unique online presence and protect the integrity of your brand.

There’s a few things you need to know about registering your trademark in Australia, including the costs, process and the difference between copyright and trademark. They’re important points, so listen up!

Firstly, let’s consider the costs associated with protecting your business name online. Registering your trademark prevents others from using your brand, logo or slogan, which could be abused by others seeking to imitate your business and scam your potential customers. This could be irreversibly damaging to your business, so seeking legal protections under trademark could save your business from scammers.

This is fairly common online, the freedoms of the internet can be easily abused and it’s your responsibility to protect yourself. It takes around 7 or 8 months to register a trademark, depending on objections, problems and formalities. Once registered, you only need to pay renewal fees every ten years. At MacMillan Trademarks, we remind you at no extra cost.

It’s just one of the ways we help protect and serve your business each step of the way. We can advise on copyright and trademark infringements of your brand too and there’s a few differences between them.

Copyright is effective immediately but applies to literary, artistic or musical content. There are some leniencies with copyright that apply, satire for example.  On the other hand, trademark provides the sole rights to the words or phrases attached to the provision of goods or services.

Let’s say you want to write advertising copy for a Pay-per-click online marketing campaign, a trademark registration will prevent any flagged words or phrases from being used in any PPC ad copy. This prevents scam artists and other businesses from capturing your customers off your brand’s back.

If you want to learn more about how trademark infringements might affect your online marketing, chat with a Trademark specialist at MacMillan Trademarks today.

Note: Make sure you check with an attorney in your respective country. Any information provided here should not be interpreted as legal advice about trademark registration or other legal matters.