Trademark and IP-related news for the legal professionals

The cost of trademark protection is climbing steadily, but higher fees do not always translate into stronger or faster protection. With fees rising across major offices, businesses must consider not only the upfront cost but the operational and strategic implications of where and how they register their trademarks.

Many entrepreneurs assume trademark conflicts only happen when two companies sell the same product. In reality, trademark law is much broader than that. It is surprisingly common for a business to invest in branding only to discover that an earlier trademark registration blocks the name. The reason often lies in how trademark classifications work.

Securing the perfect domain name before you launch your brand feels like a major win. However, an available domain doesn't automatically guarantee your brand name is legally safe to use. Understanding the difference between domain registration and trademark protection can save you from costly disputes and rebranding headaches.

For early-stage startups, timing is everything. Founders have to move fast to protect what they are building before competitors catch up. In that rush, intent-to-use trademark applications often look like the perfect solution. But while they can be powerful strategic tools, they are not placeholders you can set and forget. Used carelessly, they create vulnerabilities that only surface when it’s too late to fix them cheaply.

Trademark classes may look insignificant to many founders, but they quietly determine how strong or fragile your brand protection really is. With modern businesses bluring the line between products, services, and digital/physical offerings, it's imperative that you understand how trademark classes work and how you can use them to your advantage.

In 2025, several important court cases showed us how trademark rules are changing in response to new technologies, creative uses, and evolving markets. Together, they help explain where brand protection is heading and what companies should pay attention to.

Trademark law is a powerful tool for protecting your brand, but it has clear limits. Not everything that sounds “brandable” can actually be registered as a trademark. If you’re an entrepreneur thinking of locking in rights to a catchy city name, a cool flag-inspired logo, or terms like organic, “bio” or similar, it helps to understand why trademark law often says “no.”

AI feels inescapable in the world of business today. It's currently the premier tool for producing images, text, and even entire ad campaigns. Naming your brand is no exception to this. But as founders generate dozens and dozens of potential brand names, a question arises: 'can AI-generated brand names functions a brands, and can they be trademarked'?

Memes have evolved from brief, viral, internet jokes to legitimate commercial assets almost overnight. But, as businesses race to build a brand around memes, trademark offices around the world still can't agree on how to treat them or examine them. In this article, we explain how different offices approach memes as well as what you can do to ensure a successful registration as a meme-based brand.

Brand infringement in the context of large organisations and most valuable brands in particular is not a question of if but rather of to what extent. Very few studies however shed light on the prevalence of brand infringement in the context of smaller companies. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) often tend to rely on the “we’re too small” argument, naively presuming that it is their small size that protects them against brand imitation and misuse. Drawing on the experience of over 30,000 brands protected by Trama, this article looks into the prevalence of brand infringement among smaller companies, highlighting the crucial role of early threat recognition and action.