The trademark

The trademark is a distinctive sign which informs the consumer about the origin of a product or service from a particular subject, which can be for example a company or an enterpreneur or a commercial operator.

Hence the strategic importance of trademarks for companies, which can serv as a real collector of customers, and therefore the need to protect them.

The sign of the trademark must be capable of graphical representation and can consist for example of letters, numbers, sounds, colors, any images and/or of the product shape or of its packaging, or of a combinations of these types of signs.

Registration of the trademark is the legal instrument that allows you to protect trademarks and confers on its owner the exclusive right to use the trademarks for the products and services listed in the application for registration.

The registered trademark produces its effects in the geographical area of competence of Office which has provided for the granting of such an application, starting from a certain moment, which can correspond, as in Italy, to the date of the filing of the application, or to that of the granting of the registration, in accordance with the provisions of the applicable law. 

Regstration of trademark can last in perpetuity, subject to payment of renewal fees, which in Italy are to be paid every 10 years.

For the issue of the registration, the trademark subject of the application, as a distinctive sign, must be capable of distinguishing the goods or services supplied by the proprietor from those provided by other subjects.

The trademark must therefore:

- be sufficiently different from other signs already used on the market or registered by others, in the same country;

- must not be descriptive of the nature or characteristics or qualities of the product;

- in the case that it is constituted by the shape of the product or its packaging, it must not be constituted by a shape that has a predominant techincal or aesthetics function.

Cannot be registered:

- signs identical or very similar to armorial bearings, flags  or other emblems of institutions or political organizations belonging to the Union Convention, available by clicking here;

- signs contrary to law, public order or morality.