What you need to know when developing a word trademark

     Word mark reflects the corporate identity of the company, giving it uniqueness, forming certain associations with the products or services provided and influencing its reputation. It is known that the presence of a word mark or any other trademark has a positive effect on a company's sales and provides a competitive advantage in the market

It must be remembered that verbal technical specifications are drawn up according to special rules - it must be attractive and easy to remember for consumers, filled with semantic content, and its graphic design must be unique. When creating it, not only words or their combinations are used, but also entire sentences, interjections, exclamations in various combinations.

It should be remembered that according to the examination rules, it is necessary to correctly explain the semantic content of the verbal designation in order to avoid misunderstandings when registering it. Also, when conducting an examination, characteristics related to the presence of common features with already registered TK are taken into account - the general impression, the fonts and color combinations used, the number of syllables, their coincidence and location in the verbal TK, the similarity of ideas or their opposites embedded in the designation, etc.

If all the requirements for the registration of a mark are satisfied, then an application for its registration is submitted to Rospatent, where a formal and substantive examination is carried out, and after the experts make a positive decision, the applicant is issued a registration certificate, information about which is entered into the State Register of Trademarks.

Registration of a word trademark may be refused if words are used that, for example, are often used in relation to the product category being manufactured.

It is also a big mistake to involve specialists from an advertising company in the creation of verbal technical specifications. Despite the fact that they can come up with a unique, effective slogan or develop a successful aesthetic solution for a mark, due to a lack of knowledge about the requirements for creating a protectable sign, mistakes may be made, which may serve as grounds for refusal to register the mark.

Errors can also be made when trying to independently conduct a search for the uniqueness of designations or incorrectly selecting classes of the International Classification of Standards for them, if there are spelling errors in the description of the verbal technical specifications, incorrectly specified details, or the use of elements that are not subject to protection in the mark. All these errors can also lead to refusal of registration and, as a consequence, to financial and time losses.

Entrepreneurs often try to use superlative words in the designation that reflect the quality of the product - “the best”, “the strongest”, “the best”, “the only”, “perfect”, etc. It should be remembered that the use of such designations is limited by two laws - “On Advertising” and “On Protection of Competition”.

So, for example, in accordance with the article “On Competition”, the use of such a mark without researching these characteristics of the product in comparison with similar products of competitors and without confirming its exclusivity can be considered as a variant of unfair competition.

And the use of such characteristics in advertising may be grounds for recognizing it as unreliable or unfair, since the Advertising Law is focused on protecting the interests of consumers and suppressing the spread of false advertising, and requires a prompt response from antimonopoly authorities. Therefore, before using such words when creating technical specifications, you need to be confident in the quality of the product or service, citing research results and public opinion. At the same time, it is necessary to develop criteria for assessing the quality of goods or services, since the courts are guided by the norms of the law, and in accordance with our legislation, “advertising must meet the criteria of reliability in order to form in the consumer a correct idea about the product or service, its quality and consumer properties.”

In conclusion, I would like to add that the reason for numerous errors when submitting an application for registration of a verbal trademark is also the lack of experience in record keeping, since, having submitted an application to Rospatent, it is necessary to monitor the correspondence, correctly respond to requests from experts and submit the required documents in a timely manner, and therefore it is important to attract specialized specialists.