Do you give value to your brand and believe in protecting it? Here is our legal consultation as to why you need to register and protect your brand in Ethiopia.
Before the effect of globalization was deeply felt in the business sphere of the world, registering and protecting your trademark internationally was not a matter of life and death. Protecting your trademark at home would have sufficed. Today, however, someone in another country using your trademark could be as damaging as someone opening store with the same name as yours in your own town. So with the current trend of dynamic business expansion registering your trademark at home country only will not save your trademarks from being vulnerable overseas.
For instance in Ethiopia, unless a particular trademark is registered, the fact that the trademark is registered in other country or the fact of its being used before in another country does not give it any protection. In fact anyone submitting an ownership application over such trademark can get it registered and produce such product.
In Ethiopia well known brands of numerous products are being imported and distributed. However the more these genuine products dominate the market the more fake products with the same trademark/brand flood in to the market in a massive scale.
For instances we can take the few examples of the American Energy Management Company (APC) claims of prevalence of counterfeit UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) products that carry APC’s Brand.
We can also see the case of “fake cosmetics Industry in Ethiopia. Much of these fake products are imported from china and Middle East Countries with the intention of convincing the consumer that they are purchasing brand name items at much cheaper prices. Popular imitation products utilize internationally recognized brands. As a result it has become very difficult to identify the genuine product from the fake ones. In terms of quality the forged product has very poor quality; yet people do not identify the quality so easily and usually creates confusion on the market.
Thus we highly recommend you to register and protect your brand in Ethiopia thereby preserving your ownership right in Ethiopian jurisdiction and keeping out “fake” products counterfeiting your brand from entering the Ethiopian jurisdiction.
If you have any question or comment or need to get a practical legal support in this regard please Contact us.
Any pertinent legal consultation about Ethiopian law on trade mark registration and protection can be available from any Ethiopian Trademark Lawyer, Ethiopian Copyright Lawyer or Ethiopian Intellectual Property Lawyer.
