New Year, New Risk: Smes Exposed As Business Basic Ignored New Survey From Trade Mark Direct

Jan. 13, 2010 - PRLog -- As the number of people planning to start new businesses hits its peak this month (i), a survey of 345 small businesses from www.trademarkdirect.co.uk (ii) has revealed that 85 percent are ignoring a business essential and putting their brand at risk by failing to register a trade mark.

35 percent of small businesses surveyed said they hadn’t registered their trade mark because they felt it wasn’t important to their business.  According to online trade mark registration service Trade Mark Direct, these businesses are putting their reputation, and the thousands of pounds already spent on branding, at risk.  

Businesses who delay registering their trade mark risk their name being registered by a competitor, or later discovering that their name doesn’t comply with trade mark law when they do apply.  Trade Mark Direct’s expert advice and easy online application has seen the service achieve a success rate of 94 percent of applications filed, and its low, fixed fees are only payable for names and brands that are successfully registered.

37 percent of businesses who hadn’t registered their trade mark said they simply hadn’t found the time to, 22 percent said they wouldn’t know how to and 16 percent were opting not to because of the cost.  Although a huge 85 percent had established their brand on the internet by purchasing an internet domain name for their business, just 15 percent had taken the essential step of registering that business name as a trade mark.

The survey revealed a lack of awareness of the symbol that denotes a registered trade mark in the UK: Less than half (48 percent) of respondents correctly identified ® as the registered trade mark symbol in the UK, with 48 percent choosing the US symbol TM and four percent selecting the copyright symbol ©.  Despite this lack of basic knowledge, 71 percent of those who were registering their trade marks chose to do it themselves directly through the Intellectual Property Office rather than get specialist advice, risking hundreds of pounds in fees if their application is rejected.  

Mark Kingsley-Williams, Director of Trade Mark Direct, said: “This research highlights the common misconceptions about trade marks that many British businesses share.  What’s concerning is that so few businesses realise how important getting the right protection for their company’s name or logo is.

“When firms make applications themselves, they are risking rejection: figures from the Intellectual Property Office (iii) show a failure rate of 45 percent for direct applications from businesses.  The success rate of Trade Mark Direct’s applications is 94 percent.”

For more information on applying for a trade mark go to www.trademarkdirect.co.uk.

-ENDS-

(i) More people decide to start their own business in January than at any other time of the year (Enterprise Nation research, 2008)
(ii) Independent research of 345 start-ups and small businesses conducted for Trade Mark Direct in December 2009
(iii) Intellectual Property Office figures from 1998-2005

Notes to editors
Trade Mark Direct is an easy to use online trade mark registration service.  Its unique trade mark search technology and team of experts have seen it achieve a registration success rate of 94 percent of applications.  Fees are only payable if the name or brand can be registered as a trade mark and are fully refundable if the registration should fail.  www.trademarkdirect.co.uk

Media contact:
Faith Dawes / Alex Frith
Threepipe
0207 632 4800
Faith.dawes@threepipe.co.uk