Brand recognition is important to any business but in the highly competitive restaurant/bar trade it is crucial. The brand symbolises the business and will  create associations and expectations in the consumer’s mind to mark it out as different to other establishments.

The branding of a business involves the use of trade marks. A trade mark is a sign which is capable of:

being represented graphically;
distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of others.

The 1994 Trade Mark Act allows anything to potentially be regarded as a trade mark. So now a word (coca cola), an image (the coca cola font), a shape (the coca cola bottle), numbers (501) and even a smell (chanel) are capable of being registered as trade marks.

A proprietor has to be careful if he chooses branding which is identical or similar to trade marks used by established businesses. The proprietor is best advised to check the data base of existing registered trade marks (www.ipo.gov.uk) and “google” prospective branding ideas to see if his prospective trade mark is already in use. If these checks are not put in place then the proprietor could:

• waste money commissioning the design of the logo and the costs of printing marketing materials (if a third party can show that the proprietor is infringing his rights the proprietor would have to start again);
  
• incur legal fees in dealing with any dispute;
  
• be unable to register the brand as a trade mark.

 
Registered Trade Marks

Why Register?

The statutory protection given to registered trade marks is more robust than the common law protection. The owner of a registered trade mark merely has to show that a third party is using a trade mark which is identical or similar to his registered trade mark. Registration lasts for ten years. A registered trade mark carries the identifying suffix ® whereas an unregistered trade mark carries the identifying suffix TM.

How to Register?

There essentially two hurdles top overcome:

the proprietor has to convince UK IPO (the government agency responsible for intellectual property) that the selected trade mark is distinctive but not descriptive. If a trade mark describes a product  then it cannot be distinctive. For example Authentic Spanish Tapas vs  La Tasca; there must be no pre-existing conflicting mark.