Trademark infringement can have serious financial and reputational consequences for businesses. If another company uses your registered trademark without permission, it can lead to lost revenue, customer confusion, and damage to your brand. Understanding what trademark infringement is and how to protect your intellectual property is essential for businesses of all sizes.
What Is a Registered Trademark?
A registered trademark is a legally recognised form of intellectual property that protects unique brand identifiers such as names, logos, slogans and, in some cases, sounds. It gives the owner the exclusive right to use the trademark and take legal action against anyone who infringes it.
Benefits of a Registered Trademark
Registering your trademark provides several important benefits, including:
- Legal proof of ownership.
- The right to use the ® symbol once registered (businesses typically use ™ beforehand).
- The ability to sell, licence or mortgage the trademark as a business asset.
What Are the Limitations?
Trademark protection only applies:
- In the countries or regions where the trademark is registered.
- To the specific classes of goods or services included in the application.
How to Register a Trademark
Applications are made through the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The IPO checks whether your trademark is distinctive and available before adding it to the register
What Is Trademark Infringement?
Trademark infringement occurs when someone uses a registered trademark, or a confusingly similar mark, without permission in relation to goods or services.
In the UK, trademark infringement is primarily governed by the Trade Marks Act 1994 and can lead to civil action, criminal prosecution, or both.
Many larger organisations employ dedicated brand protection managers or work with specialist investigators to identify and stop counterfeit activity.
Surelock Brand Protection Services
Surelock has over 25 years of experience helping businesses protect their intellectual property through proactive investigations and enforcement.
Learn more about our Brand Protection services
Why Brand Protection Matters
Protecting your brand helps to:
- Protect your reputation and business value.
- Prevent loss of revenue.
- Reduce brand abuse.
- Stop counterfeiters and copyright infringement.
- Protect consumers from unsafe or poor-quality counterfeit products.
As brands become more recognisable, they often become more attractive targets for counterfeiters, making ongoing brand protection increasingly important.
How Surelock Investigates Trademark Infringement
Our experienced investigators work alongside enforcement agencies to identify counterfeit operations, gather intelligence and support enforcement action.
Our services include:
- Market surveillance.
- Online infringement monitoring.
- Counterfeit investigations.
- Authentication examinations.
- Intelligence gathering.
- Covert reconnaissance.
- Working with UK Border Force and enforcement agencies.
- Online takedown services.
Our surveillance specialists also support complex investigations
Working With the Authorities
Surelock works closely with organisations including:
- The Intellectual Property Office (IPO)
- UK Border Force (UKBF)
- Trading Standards
- Police forces across the UK
- City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU)
Learn more about PIPCU
Collaboration with organisations such as A-CG also plays an important role in tackling organised counterfeit crime:
Proven Results
For more than 25 years, Surelock has helped protect the intellectual property of some of the world's leading brands, including LVMH, Tiffany & Co., Alexander McQueen, Under Armour, New Era, NBA, NFL, Paddington Bear, Studiocanal and many more.
Our investigators have been directly involved in some of the UK's largest counterfeit seizures, helping remove dangerous fake goods from circulation while supporting successful criminal prosecutions.
A recent example can be found here
Read testimonials from our clients
Protect Your Brand Today
Whether you're dealing with counterfeit goods, online trademark infringement or wider brand abuse, Surelock can help develop an affordable anti-counterfeit strategy tailored to your business.
Our experienced team provides proactive investigations, market surveillance, online enforcement and intelligence gathering to help keep your brand protected.
Contact Surelock
Contact us: www.surelock.org/contact-us
Website: www.surelock.org
Email: info@surelock.org
Telephone: 0333 6000 300
