Starting a new business is an exciting, exhilarating rollercoaster of a ride and in the beginning there are so many things to do and keep track of. One of the first things that many business owners do is register their business name and a domain name, in the belief that this is enough to protect their business.
However one crucial step is missing, with that step being to register your business name as a trademark. This is the only way to protect your business name and stop others from using it.
A well known case in Australia involved a business name many might; ‘Twitter’. In 2006 Jason Boyce started a business providing a site that would allow Australian businesses to promote their products online. When thinking of a business name he was flicking through the thesaurus when he came across ‘Twitter’. He made enquiries and found that no other business was using that name, so he registered it, as well as the domain name ‘twitter.com.au’.
Meanwhile in the US, Jack Dorsey had developed the idea of sending short, SMS-type messages to a group of people and on March 21, 2006 the first ‘tweet’ was sent and from here developed the company we now know as Twitter, which currently has over 140 million users.
A trademark for Twitter was filed for registration in Australia in October 2007 by the US company as it gained traction around the world. In 2009 Boyce applied for registration of the trademark ‘twitter.com.au’ in Australia to protect his business name. Twitter opposed the application and succeeded despite the fact that Boyce had been operating his business prior to the creation of Twitter and its subsequent registration of a trademark in Australia.
Twitter was successful due to the fact that its domain name of ‘twitter.com’ was similar enough to Boyce’s ‘twitter.com.au’ that the average consumer would be confused.
Boyce argued that he had started his business before Twitter, however he was unsuccessful as he had not registered a trademark for his business name at the time and Twitter had subsequently registered a trademark of the name.
As this case illustrates a business must consider taking out a trademarkover their business name in the beginning, because circumstances can quickly change and you don’t want another company swooping up your business name and ruining all of the hard work that has gone into building your business under that name.
Registering a trademark in Australia is not an expensive process, costing only a few hundred dollars to make an application. Your lawyer can assist you in this process and provide protection to your business’ brand. If you’re a small business owner this really is a step that you should consider taking.