Around copyright, there are several opinions regarding the need for its registration and legitimization of one’s rights. Some believe that it is not at all necessary to carry out certain registration procedures at the state level, because you can consider the rights to an author’s object as yours until someone else disputes them and proves it in court. In fairness, it should be noted that such people are a minority. The majority believes that any intellectual property must be registered. And it’s not just a matter of pampering one’s self-esteem. Pragmatic people register their copyrights in order to protect themselves from the intrigues of competitors and avoid lengthy litigation. With copyright, the principle “the sooner the better” applies.
As a rule, it is in court that one has to defend one’s reputation, to prove the uniqueness of one’s work (whether it be a literary, musical or other creation) or the exclusivity and inviolability of a trademark. The scale of plagiarism and piracy has grown exponentially in recent years. Often, attackers change only some minor detail and thereby try to circumvent copyright law, proving that these are completely different objects. In such cases, having registered rights in hand, the copyright holder has the right to file a claim for copyright protection and order an examination that will prove his case.
Registering a trademark to protect your copyright
In today’s competitive environment, it is impossible to attract and retain consumer demand without a memorable logo, a sonorous slogan. Anything that encourages a consumer to come back to your product requires registration and copyright protection so that you do not have to pay compensation to competitors later. And this is a quite realistic scenario for the development of events: company “A” does not register its rights to a trademark (brand, logo, etc.), competitors create a product that is similar in visual performance and register their rights to it, then sue and demand recover from the company “A” lost profits. That is why all developments of corporate styles and brand-books are kept strictly secret, and after approval they immediately submit documents for registration.
Registration of a trademark in the Republic of Kazakhstan is carried out in accordance with the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Trademarks, Service Marks and Appellations of Origin”. Documentation is carried out by the National Institute of Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In most cases, trademarks are registered that fall into one of three categories:
- A word trademark is a word, a combination of characters (letters, numbers, signs) or a phrase;
- The image as a trademark – at the same time, the company logo is submitted for registration;
- A combined trademark includes several elements of the trademark, both graphic and verbal.
Copyright protection is a very difficult and time-consuming process, and registration and registration of trademarks takes a very long period of time (sometimes up to one year). That is why, in order to minimize risks and speed up the process, it is worth contacting professionals, they not only know the whole procedure “from” and “to”, but also help to avoid pitfalls.