Trademark or copyright my logo
If you’re asking the question, “Should I trademark or copyright my logo?”, nice work! The fact that you know that you should protect your logo means you take brand ownership seriously.
You’ll be glad to know that you don’t need to be a legal whizz to understand the difference between the two intellectual property rights.
Copyright is a right that arises automatically when you create an original artistic, musical, literary or other creative work. As the copyright owner you have the exclusive right to use and copy your creative work (and permit others to do the same).
From a branding perspective, the trouble with copyright is that, if someone else copies your logo, it can be difficult, not to mention, expensive, to prove that:
(1) you own the copyright in your logo, and
(2) the other person actually copied your logo
You’d need to prove both these things to prove that they’d infringed your copyright and get them to stop using your logo. .
However, if you have protected your logo with a trademark registration, it’s much easier to stop copycats from using your logo (or even a confusingly similar logo). You don’t need to go to the trouble of gathering evidence about your ownership - the fact that you have a trademark registration is on public record. Not only that, to prove trademark infringement, you don’t have to show that your competitor actually copied you, only that the mark they’re using is identical or confusingly similar to your trademark registration.
Trademark your logo and protect your brand
A trademark registration is government authorised protection for your brand - you can potentially trademark your logo, your brand name, and your slogan, your social media handle, even your domain name, if it's a distinctive and essential element of your brand reputation.
If you have registered your logo as a trademark, you have legal proof that you own the logo and you have secured the exclusive right to use that logo for your products and services.
In today’s crowded and competitive marketplace, the sooner you register your trademark the better. Even SMEs and startups should make sure that they protect their brands, before a competitor starts using something confusingly similar!
Once you have a trademark registration, you have the right to use the trademark symbol ® with your logo, to show that your logo is protected.
How to trademark your logo
With Trademarks Online you can apply for a trademark registration quickly and easily in 3 steps:
1. Upload your original logo
Add your logo image to start your application.
2. Select the category
Choose the relevant products or services that your logo represents. For example, are you selling cosmetics, hoodies or accounting services? Our smart technology makes this step very straightforward!
3. Identify the trademark owner
This is the person who will be responsible for the trademark registration. It could be you as an individual or your business.
4. Submit your application
With Trademarks Online it takes mere minutes to submit your trademark application yourself, using our online trademark registration process.
What does it cost to trademark a logo?
With Trademarks Online, our pricing is simple, inclusive and it’s a one-time payment. There are no surprise ‘success’ fees later.
One-off fee: $200 per trademark application
Fee per class: $200 for each class included in the trademark application (includes all official fees).
A number of payment methods are available, as set out below:
