What is a brand?

A brand can be a trade name, a sign, symbol, slogan or anything that is used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service or business. But a brand is much more than this; it can also be a ‘promise of an experience’ and conveys to consumers a certain assurance as to the nature of the product or service they will receive and also the standards the supplier or manufacturer seeks to maintain. For example, a ‘brand’ might focus on exclusivity of design; or perhaps excellence of customer service or maybe high moral standards in its dealings with suppliers; or perhaps a combination of these and other values. This guaranteeing function is not created overnight; it is usually hard won in the marketplace and develops over time.

Brands are therefore reputational assets based on powerfully held beliefs; they drive the understanding of value in a product or company, and, perhaps most importantly, customer loyalty. It can, therefore, be important that as a company develops and expands it considers how its new products and services fit in with its branding, and how the value that they represent may be protected under intellectual property rights.

Intellectual Property Protection for Brands

Intellectual property rights provide legal protection for some of the most important aspects of a brand e.g. the name, logo, design, domain name and sometimes the product itself.

Systems for the registering and granting the excusive use of brand-related intellectual property rights to their owners have been developed in order to allow companies to prove their ownership of brands, and then enable them to legally prevent others from copying or ‘free riding’ on their brand investments.

  • Registered Trade Mark - a sign which can distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors. It can be, for example, words, logos or a combination of both.
  • Registered Design - a legal right which protects the overall visual appearance of a product.
  • Unregistered Design Right - automatic protection for the internal or external shape or configuration of an original design.
  • Copyright - automatic protection for original literary, artistic and musical creations, along with other categories of creative endeavour. Logos, jingles, labels and packaging etc. may be afforded copyright protection.
  • Patent - protects new inventions and covers how things work, what they do, how they do it etc. In essence a brand may be the product itself.
  • Domain Names – unique addresses that identify, and permit access to specific web sites. Domain names are registered with licensed registry operators, such as Nominet External Link that administer the .uk domain, who are overseen by ICANN External Link