3 Most Important Benefits of Registering Trademarks

There is a lot more than 3, but 3 is the one that I am going to point out.

So, first of all, an unregistered trademark protects you only in the geographical area where enough people know about you under that brand. So, what that means is that with an unregistered trademark you would need to prove that your brand is a trademark, that you own it, and that it's known to enough people in the geographical area where you're claiming that it should be protected.

With a registered trademark, the first benefit is that you get a presumption of ownership. What that means is that your trademark registration certificate is enough evidence that your brand is recognized as a trademark and that you're recognized as its legal owner. Now, it can be disputed, very rarely it gets disputed, but now it's up to the other side to prove that your brand is either not a trademark or that you don't own it, or that you shouldn't own it. So, the first one is the presumption of ownership.

The second benefit is that registered trademarks are federal. So your registered trademark is protected all across Canada if you have a Canadian trademark, or all across the U.S. if you have a U.S. trademark. It doesn't make it international by itself but it protects you all across the country, even if nobody has ever heard of you in a particular area of that country.

And the third benefit is that the only way to protect your trademark before it's launched is to file for registration, to apply for registration. And here is the idea: as I said unregistered trademarks protect you where enough people know about you in the geographical area where you offer your products and services. By definition, it means that you've already launched and have enough people who've heard about you under that brand and who remember you under that brand. And if you've just come up with a great idea and it's here, in your head, if you haven't launched it yet, there is absolutely no way to protect it other than to file an application to the Trademarks Office saying that this is the brand that I want to protect.

A lot of companies trademark their brands before they launched them. Because they knew it would take them a while to establish enough evidence to be able to claim protection for their unregistered trademarks.

So what they did is, they come up with a name, they trademarked it, and then they started using it right and left—because they knew their brand is already protected.