taking your brand overseas

Taking your brand overseas

Gavin Llewellyn Senior Associate

Intellectual Property

11th March 2015

Steps to take before you

launch your brand overseas

Many businesses spend time getting the

business side right and forgetting about

the law

• Five stages

– Planning and research

– Development

– Clearance

– Trade mark/design registration

– Launch, monitoring and enforcement

Planning

• Identify what you are exporting

– Goods or services?

– What is your USP?

– Who are your customers?

• Research your target market

– Identify local competition

– Will your USP work?

– Demographic comparison

Development

• How are you going to launch the brand?

– Is there any current brand recognition?

• Consider adapting for the local market

– Will it appeal to foreign buyers?

• How am I going to package the product?– Labelling

– Compliance with local laws

Development

• Who will exploit your brand locally?

– Branch office

• Who will be your employees?

• Consider local employment laws

– Local partners

• Franchising

• Distribution

• Agency

• Licensing

Clearance

• Intellectual property rights

• Assets like any other

• IPR strategy

• Protect your IPRs

• Check freedom to use your IPRs!

Copyright

Design rights

Gimex ‘Transline’ bag Gimex cooler bag

‘Chill Bag’ product

Trade marks/passing

off/unfair competition

Clearance

Clearance

• Trade mark clearance searching

– First past the post

• Designs

• Commercial investigations

– Looking for evidence of use and goodwill

– Looking for ‘prior art’

Protection

• Trade mark registration

• Design registration

Launch, monitoring and

enforcement

• Monitor not just the success of your brand,

but also what your competitors are doing

• Trade mark watching services

• If you have registered trade marks, you

should receive notice of conflicting

applications

• Need to carry out your own monitoring of

product designs

• If you discover a potential infringement of

your IPRs act quickly

• Seek local law advice with a local

presence

• Consider joining local trade associations

which champion IPR protection

Gavin Llewellyn020 7324 1524

gll@stoneking.co.uk