In law, Australia, trademarks refer to signs that distinguish goods or services from other goods or services, including letters, numbers, words, phrases, sounds, odors, shapes, signs, pictures, actions, or a combination of them.
Registration of Australian trademarks is not mandatory, and eligible unregistered trademarks can also be protected by common law prohibition of counterfeiting or prohibition of fraud and misleading in the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, as well as by states or territories similar to legislation, but trademark registration has many benefits:
The pig register trademark rights has the exclusive right to use;
In the litigation of registered trademark infringement, the registered trademark rights does not need to prove that the trademark has a certain reputation or that others use the same or similar trademark may mislead the public.
The rights of the registered trademark rights is valid throughout Australia, not only in areas where the trademark is used and has a certain reputation;
After the registration of a trademark, no person shall register or adopt the same or similar trademark as the registered trademark.
Australian Trademark Registration conditions:
Trademarks that have been used or are intended to be used;
It is substantially different from the logo already used by the third party or registered or applied for registration before it is registered or applied for registration, and will not lead to confusion;
Have or become significant.
Time required for registration of trademarks in Australia:
- If there is no objection, registration will be completed within 10 to 12 months from the date of application.
Content of registered trademark right:
- It is prohibited for others to use trademarks that do not have material differences or may lead to confusion on the same or similar products, and the "well-known" trademark can also extend the protection to unrelated goods or services.
- The protection period of registered Australian trademark shall be 10 years from the date of submission of the application and may be extended infinitely. If the trademark has been registered for more than five years but has not been used in the last 3 years, the trademark registration may be revoked on the basis of an application by a third party.
Basic introduction to Australian Trademark Office
- Australian intellectual property official website: www.ipaustralia.gov.au
- Australian trademark address: Australia Capital Territory Platts Street 47 Exploration Building 1 F (Ground Floor Discovery House 47 Bowes Street Phillip ACT).
- Australian Trademark Office Tel: 61 6283 2999
- Australian Trademark Office Fax: 61 6285 4731
- Australian Trademark online Application Web site: https://services.ipaustralia.gov.au/astro-als
- Australian Trademark Search: http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/atmoss/falcon.application_start.
- Australian Trademark Classification Index: http://xeno.ipaustralia.gov.au/tmgns/facelets/tmgoods.xhtml
- Australia Pictures Trademark Enquiry: http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/tmimages/cgi-bin/tm_image_viewer.pl
Australian Trademark Protection law regulations
- Trademark Law 1995 (Trade Marks Act 1995)
- Trade Marks Ordinance 1995 (Trade Marks Regulations 1995)
- Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Competition and Consumer Act 2010)
- Competition and Consumer regulations 2010 (Competition and Consumer Regulations 2010)
- Code of Conduct for Patent and Trademark agents 2013 (Code of Conduct for Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys 2013)
