CONGRATULATIONS you have manufactured a new craft beer and people love it! You have an interesting name and a creative logo that you apply to your craft beer…but is your brand protected?

As an example, let’s say you are manufacturing craft beer using the product name STICKMEN together with your very own unique and distinctive logo i.e.

Why should you protect your STICKMEN brand?

If you don’t protect your STICKMEN brand of craft beer that everyone loves, someone else will beat you to it and try and obtain intellectual property protection for it themselves – especially when your brand gains in popularity. A clash will result which could be avoided by securing trade mark protection timeously for your product name and logos.

How do you protect your brand ?

By securing and filing trade mark applications for your product name STICKMEN and logo , you are likely to be able to prevent other parties in South Africa from using an identical or confusingly similar name and/or logo in relation to craft beer or beer tasting operations. Your trade marks serve to distinguish your brand from those of other third party traders operating in the craft beer industry, and gives you an identity in the market place.

There are 45 different trade mark classes, however, class 32 covers “beer” so that would be the class of interest to you. If you also run a restaurant or have a beer tasting operation under your brand name you can also protect your trade marks in class 43 which covers “restaurant services and beer tasting”.

How long do you have brand protection for?

Securing exclusive rights in a trade mark can be infinite as long as you renew your trade mark registrations every ten years from the initial filing date.

How do you go about filing trade mark applications and how much will it cost?

Once you have considered the importance of protecting your brands you can send us your product names and logos and within days your applications will be assessed and filed.

KISCH IP is offering a limit special on the costs of securing trade marks for craft brewers in South Africa and we will take the hassle away from you doing it yourself!

For further information contact Karen Kitchen.