Brands, represented by trade or service marks, are crucial assets for the success of most companies. Proper management of intellectual property assets requires periodic evaluation, in order to ensure adequate, timely and cost-effective control.
Conducting regular reviews of a company's portfolio of products and services from the perspective of trademark protection, is a fundamental step in optimizing the value inherent to intellectual property protection. This is often called a trademark audit.
Audits, conducted by a trademark professional, can document which signs, logos or words are distinctive to a company's marketplace offerings and can, thus, help build a stronger brands or obtain stronger protection.
Audits can also extend to evaluating and tracking existing registrations and their records before the Trademark Office, with the purpose of making sure that they are updated, enforceable and to plan actions in order to prevent or correct deficiencies that may cause potential loss of the rights o revenue.
Some specific benefits of conducting a trademark audit:
- Can help determine what is the current strength of trademark protection
- Keep track of specific actions required to maintain existing registrations
- Identified records before the Trademark Office that may be in need of updates (e.g. filing for change of ownership, change of name, change of address, etc.)
- Determine potential risks and that may cause loss of registrations
- Plan a cost-effective maintenance strategy based on costs and benefits
- Identify potential assets that are not protected
- Plan an effective licensing strategy
- Permits developing holistic approaches to protection of other intangible assets, such as domain names
These are just some examples of the underlying interests of undertaking in Costa Rica trademark audits.
Feel free to consult with us for more specific information.
