Registering a company name with ASIC, buying a domain and opening the social accounts does not give you ownership of your brand. A registered trade mark does. Here is how the process actually works in Australia.
1. Search before you commit
Search the register and the market before you invest in signage, packaging or a rebrand. You are looking for identical and — more importantly — deceptively similar marks in the classes you care about. A search costs a fraction of a rebrand, and it tells you two things: whether your application is likely to succeed, and whether launching at all risks an infringement claim from someone already there.
2. Choose your classes carefully
Trade marks are registered against classes of goods and services — 45 of them. Protection only extends to what you registered for. A café registered in class 43 has no protection if someone launches clothing under the same name in class 25. Pick the classes that cover what you do now and what you can realistically see yourself doing; adding classes later means a fresh application with a later priority date.
3. Decide what you are registering
A word mark protects the word however it is styled, and is generally the stronger registration. A logo mark protects that specific visual. Many businesses register both. Purely descriptive words are hard to register — a mark that simply describes the goods is usually refused, because no one trader can monopolise ordinary descriptive language.
4. File and wait
You file with IP Australia. An examiner reviews the application and either accepts it or issues an adverse report raising objections — most commonly that the mark is too similar to an existing registration, or too descriptive. Adverse reports are answerable, and many are overcome with the right evidence or an amended specification.
Once accepted, the mark is advertised for opposition. If nobody opposes, it proceeds to registration. An unopposed application typically takes around seven to eight months end to end, with protection backdated to your filing date.
5. Keep it alive, and use it
Registration lasts ten years and renews indefinitely. But a mark that is not used can be removed for non-use, and a registration you never enforce weakens over time. If you expand overseas, the Madrid Protocol lets you extend protection to other countries from your Australian application.
The mistake to avoid
Building a brand for three years and only then discovering someone else registered it first. The register is public and searching it is quick. Do it at the start.