So a trademark is your brand, which can be in a form of a word, picture, symbol, or a combination of these. Interestingly enough, 3D objects and sounds can also be registered aside from word trademarks and logo marks. What it does, is to seperate your brand from other goods and services that your competitors may offer. You should consider owning a trademark because it protects you and your consumers from counterfeit and fraud. Also, legal action for a trademark infringement is relatively cheap, sometimes as little as a few thousand pounds, compared to the hundreds of thousands of pounds you have to pay for an action claim of passing off in UK, same goes in the US. Trademarks allow the Trading Standards Officer or the police to criminally charge against counterfeit who use your trademark without your consent. It’s a good way to protect your hard earned good name, don’t you think? But what exactly will you register? A  word mark  registers the word itself you want to use,...

Alex: So plucky UK company LUSH has defeated the mighty US retail steamroller AMAZON in the UK court Mark: Yes, there were several parts to the case Alex: But it revolved around the LUSH trademark? Mark: Lush brought the case after it found Amazon bid on keywords containing ‘lush’ within Google’s AdWords service in order to trigger results on the Amazon site, despite the fact it did not sell the brand. Also someone searching for 'Lush' on Amazon was shown a drop-down menu of equivalent products, some containing the word ‘lush’.  Lush bought three classes of claim against the online retailer, two related to internet search engines and one over Amazon’s own search generator. Alex: How is this different from the previous big battle over trade marks between INTERFLORA and MARKS & SPENCER where M&S got a spanking for biding on INTERFLORA as an Google keyword to trigger they own ad? Mark: well the Adwords part of the LUSH claim is the same. Basically where you have a distinct...