Delving into the Legality Related to E-Commerce Trademarks

Karan Singh
| Updated: May 22, 2021 | Category: Trademark

In the profession of business, Trademark plays a crucial role.  Trademark provides an exclusive right to protect you and your company and also make sure the growth by developing the business existence. You Trademark make sure that no infringer or any unauthorised person can violate the integrity of your logos or brands by falsifying them. In simple words, it performs as a security measure for the entity’s intangible assets. In this write-up, we are going to discuss about the E-commerce Trademark in detail.

Meaning of Trademark as per the Bylaws

A Trademark consists of any logo, word, name, design, or symbol considered to be used in the business to differentiate the products of one seller/manufacturer from the equivalents serving a similar area of interest. Trademark also mentions a manifestation of the source of the goods or products. For the primary goal of this blog, it is assumed that the reader acknowledges the basic of what a Trademark is and what motive it serves. Thus, this blog will purposely highlight the relevancy of E-Commerce Trademark.

Fundamentals of E-Commerce Trademark

Because web-based or e-commerce business takes place online on the internet, most of the company’s assets are present in the form of IP (Intellectual Property). Your IP is available to the public domain, and that implies it is intimidating than ever to manages and regulate your assets. That is why it is essential to protect the intellectual assets with Trademarks and get recognise with the e-commerce Trademark to make sure that you are not infringing on someone’s property.

Depending upon what country you belong to, there are many legal or authorised implications surrounding Trademark Law. If you are expecting to monetise your intellectual property, it is preferable to look for relevant proficiency to get you set up. But, if you are involved in an e-commerce business, it is vital to get Trademark Registration on your own. Most of the new firms will aim to do as much as they can themselves. Following are some critical tips that you can do.

Vital Commands Concerning the E-Commerce Trademarks

Even if you are regulating a small entity, then you should try hard to get your company name, slogan, and domain name registered. If you are involved with some unique or distinct product lines, that must also be trademarked.

Commands Concerning the E-Commerce Trademarks
  • Apply for Trademark for Better Safeguard: In India, if a Trademark is not registered, then anyone can use or misuse the Trademark. So it is necessary to get Trademark Registration completely. Also, in India, unregistered Trademarks get some recognition. So, to create such an unregistered Trademark, you need to put the TM Trademark symbol behind the image or name that you desire to own. However, this mark wouldn’t provide full protection or safeguard against infringement due to the insufficiency of required rights. In such conditions, the idea or “Prior Use” comes into action.
  • Unique Trademark: It is comparatively easier to protect the unique Trademarks, which imply that the more you encourage and secures your Trademark, the easier it is to protect the Trademark because it is associated with your entity or company. Also, it is worth noting that just because you form a Trademark does not give you the eights to it, especially if it is something original or non-obviousness that would be displayed in normal language, for example, colour name adjective, and so forth.
  • Don’t Infringe any Trademark Rights: Ensure that you are not violating anyone’s Trademark rights unintentionally or purposely. To avoid these complications, you can control a Trademark Search to find out if your Trademark is in use or not. In case you find your Trademark unique in every point, the best thing is to choose for Trademark Registration without any delay.

Ensure to maintain the integrity of other’s Trademark rights while picking the business or domain name. However, when you are performing as a third-party seller for manufacturers, it is essential to make sure that you have prior approval to use the marketing material on your digital store. If you are selling branded products, you should make sure that you have the consent of the owner to use the intellectual property[1] & images associated with the products before uploading them to your digital store.

  • Ensure Transparency of IPR in Mutual Contract: In case you have entered into a legal agreement with a website development company to aid you to create an online store. In that case, you might think nobody would violate the IP (like images, name, logos, design, and descriptions) in the future. Usually, such assets are susceptible to violation until the point they get incorporated. Ensure you thoroughly inspect your contract to recognise which party possesses the Intellectual Property Right on your website.

A similar idea goes with the scripts, databases, and source code on your website. If you are operating a web-based store, securing your database must be your utmost priority. If you are a website development expert who has developed the website for the customers, you are entitled to protect a Trademark for your HTML plugins and codes.

Circumstances that Activates Dissolution of Trademark Protection: E-Commerce Trademark

There are some circumstances where you might face the dissolution of rights Trademark protection. These consist of:

  1. Common Terms: If you desire to Trademark a broadly used term, for example, if you want to call your computer hardware site “Computer” as a single name, the authority might decline your request since the terms are generic and cannot be owned. However, if you used it in tandem with another term such as “Orange Computer”. You could Trademark that.
  2. Abandonment: It will come into action if you were no longer using the registered Trademark. The inconsistent usages of the Trademark would erode its validity.
  3. Right are Restricted to your Products and Services: If anyone uses the same name as yours, but the services are completely different, you may find it very difficult to ensure them. For example, if you created a digital game known as “Punjab Pests” and then Indian based entrepreneurs open the company called “Punjab Pest”, you won’t be skilled to protect your Intellectual Property Rights, as the services are entirely unique and their company is linked with the name by nature.

Conclusion

The digital business is still in its growing and developing stage and is likely to establish outstanding revenue in the forthcoming year. With that said, the intellectual property assets on the website have become more unprotected to violating rights, which in turn increase the necessity of Trademark protection to a new level.

Read our article:How can you file a Trademark Objection Reply in India?

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Karan Singh

A legal writing enthusiast, a wanderer, and a zealous reader. After gaining a lot of knowledge about the diverse legal topics and developing research skills, Karan joined the league of legal content writers to deliver quality-rich blogs.

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