Why should I register my app as a trade mark?

You’ve developed the app, perfected the marketing and got it included in the app stores – so far so good. However, it is the nature of the industry that as soon as a successful app is launched, any number of copycat apps appear on the market with confusingly similar names stealing ‘your’ customers. So what can you do?

Under UK intellectual property law if another party uses a name or logo which is the same or similar to the one you use, it causes confusion in the eyes of the consumer, and as a result you suffer loss (of sales), then you can bring an action for ‘passing off’ whether you have registered your mark or not. The issues are that to successfully bring such an action takes time and money, as you have to prove each of the above points and obtain judgement from the courts – and in the meantime your competitor is still selling their competing app.

The solution is simple – by registering the name of your app as a registered trade mark the burden of proof is much lower. Simply providing Apple, Google or Amazon with a copy of your registration certificate is normally sufficient to get a copycat app removed from the store, usually within days.

With our fixed fee trade mark registration service you can get your mark registered from just £500 plus VAT and filing fees.