Stacy from The Lemongrass Trading Company has recently been to an IPO (Intellectual Property Office) workshop and come back brimming with information on how to register your own Trademark to to make sure that your IP is protected with Copyright.
If you want to ensure you have full control of your product and it’s protected you’ll find pretty much all the information you need at gov.uk/ipo. You can also reach them on 0300 300 2000.
The IPO produce a really useful free booklet “IP BASICS” and also hold free workshops at the British Library (Business and IP Centre) – 020 7412 7454. If you’re interested in a one-to-one sessions they can be booked at very low cost (£20 or so).
It is not so expensive to register designs and Trademarks – but gives 20 years’ protection. Costs run at about £60 for a registered design. Stacy paid in all about £170 for Trademark.
Stacy has a final word of warning – after registering a Trademark with IPO, a ton of letters and emails arrived (usually from Latvia or Lithuania, but also China) asking for fees to protect the copyright abroad, renewal fees, claiming international breeches of copyright etc – IGNORE them all!
One Response
Applying for a trademark is about the easiest thing you can do. The form on the IPO site is about as simple to navigate as it gets. Save your £20, just go online. It takes about 10 minutes to complete.