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Trademarks
What is a trademark?
A trademark is a "sign" that makes it possible to distinguish products or services produced or distributed by a specific company from those of other companies.
According to art. 7 of the Industrial Property Code, it is possible to register as trademarks all signs that can be graphically represented, in particular: words (including names of persons), drawings, letters, numbers, sounds, the shape of the product or its packaging, combinations or shades of colour.
Requirements for registration
- novelty: the mark must not be confused with identical or similar earlier marks (to be verified before its filing by a previous art search) or with other distinctive signs (e.g. domain names, company names, etc...);
- Distinctive character: the brand has distinctive character when it is able to distinguish the products/services of one company from those of other companies. To achieve this, the brand cannot only consist of general terms of common use (e.g. beautiful house) or simple descriptions of the products/services for which it is proposed (e.g. leasing for all);
- lawfulness: not contrary to law, public order or morality and, above all, not likely to mislead consumers about geographical origin, characteristics and qualities of the products and services.
Why to file a trademark
The filing of a trademark guarantees its owner the following advantages:
- rights of its exclusive use
- the right to prevent unauthorised use by third parties of a trademark identical with or similar to their own trademark, for identical or similar goods or services; if the trademark is a well-known one, this right also extends to non-similar services or products (art. 20, Intellectual Property Code)
- guarantee of protection in licensing, franchising and production/distribution agreements
- right to detain counterfeit goods at customs/right to customs surveillance measures
- right to administrative opposition procedures
- legal use of the ® symbol after registration of the trademark
- increase in the economic value of the brand
- possibility of obtaining tax deductions
- the right to obtain the reallocation of an Internet domain name identical to one's own trademark
- the right to prevent third parties from using their own trademark as a keyword in Internet search engines
In particular, the protection of the mark:
- is territorial, i.e. limited to the chosen geographical area: national, international or European trademark
- is limited to the goods and/or services requested at the application stage, which must be indicated in accordance with the NICE Classification
- is the responsibility of the trademark owner.
Trademark ownership
The owners of the mark may be one or more natural (individuals) and/or legal persons.
Nature of the trademark
For graphic-verbal composition, the mark can be:
- denominative if it consists of an indication typed on a keyboard, without customized characters, colors, graphics and/or logo. The denominative mark protects the wording, not its appearance
- figurative if it has a logo/image and/or personalised graphics and/or customized or patterned characters and/or colours. A figurative mark protects both the words used and the appearance.
Types of trademarks
- individual, if it identifies individual products or services;
- collective, if the owner of the mark (generally associations, cooperatives or consortia) performs the function of guaranteeing the origin, nature or quality of certain goods or services through the preparation of regulations on it. The trademark is then granted in use to producers or traders who undertake to comply with the regulatory rules concerning its use, checks and related penalties in the case of breach.
Notwithstanding Article 13(1) of the Intellectual Property Code, a collective mark may consist of signs or indications which, in the course of trade, may serve to indicate the geographical origin (and, therefore, the quality resulting from the particular area of production) of the goods/services.
Duration and Renewal
The trademark has a ten-year protection period and it is renewable indefinitely for periods of ten years.