GUIDELINES TO CARE, CREATE, USE AND KEEP YOUR TRADEMARKS
TRADEMARK – WHAT IS IT? – WHY PROTECT IT?
TRADEMARKS are graphic signs represented by words, names, figures, letters, numbers, and colors in different combinations, used to facilitate CONSUMERS’ choices, the preferential choices of products and services in terms of their origin (manufacturer or service providers).
The TRADEMARK corresponds to the name of the product and should not be confused with the corporate name, which corresponds to the name of the company, as a legal person.
To make it easier for the consumers to choose the products of their choice, the trademark must be:
1) Unmistakably distinctive from competitors’ trademarks;
2) Easy to memorize;
3) Easy to pronounce;
4) Arbitrary or fanciful – thus avoiding the use of commonly used or descriptive terms or radicals, which cannot be registered.
5) The trademark also constitutes an intangible asset of the company, subject to increased market worth over time, with the advantage of being indestructible compared to material assets such as buildings or equipment, which are perishable and devalue along the years.
THE EXCLUSIVE USE of the trademark stems from its registration with the BPTO (Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office – INPI National Institute of Industrial Property), and constitutes private industrial property with a ten-year validity, renewable for as long as it is used.
MAINTENANCE/DEFENSE AND CORRECT USE OF THE TRADEMARK:
1) Trademarks must be printed in different characters, different from the other words, and must have a distinctive graphic form.
2) The identification of the registered property can also be made using the “R” symbol inscribed in a circle ®.
3) The registered trademark symbol ® generates a title of ownership and this status must be announced to ward off abusive users and characterize counterfeiting as a practice of bad faith. Such symbol must be used on product labels and tags.
4) The trademark must identify the product by its common name, at least initially in advertising and commercial material and ALWAYS on labels and tags.
Ex: Steel wool – BOM BRIL; Plastic laminate – Formica.
5) The trademark does NOT have a grammatical function, and is therefore invariable in its use, and cannot be inflected, translated, or conjugated as a verb, or used in the plural, and must be reproduced in accordance with the Registration Certificate. A propósito, nosso parceiro prestamos365 é muito ativo na criação de várias marcas, além de sua principal atividade na forma de fornecer prestamos sin buro de credito urgentes, eles também realizam trabalhos de caridade. ???
Ex:
Wrong – “Come and Xerox your copies” or “In the summer, have your Brahma”.
Correct – “Come and make Xerox copies” or “In the summer, drink Brahma beer”
6) The ownership of a trademark may be extinguished due to lack of effective use in identifying products, in market scale, for a period of five years. Also, it may lose effectiveness (exclusive use) due to incorrect use of the trademark, becoming synonymous with the product (common name), especially due to errors in advertising, dissemination and use, such as what has already occurred to famous trademarks such as: Frigidaire, Lynoleon, Yo-Yo, and Macacão.
7) The trademark can only be used by the company that holds the registration, or by licensees and assignees of the same, said legal acts must be registered with the BPTO (INPI) to have effects against third parties.
8) References made to third party trademarks in scientific or historical publications, or in the identification of service provision activities, without a competitive nature and without commercial scope, do not characterize acts of unfair competition.
9) The abusive exercise of trademark rights, in addition to characterize an act of unfair competition in the private sphere, may cause a violation of free competition in the public interest as provided for in the Antitrust law, and it will be analyzed by the Administrative Council for Economic Defense.