Why trademark renewals matter more than most people think

A trademark is usually the most valuable of the three registrations behind a business name, because it is the only one that protects the brand itself. It is also the one most likely to be forgotten, simply because it comes round so rarely. A business name renews every one or three years and you get used to it. A trademark renews once in ten, and a decade is long enough for the person who registered it to have moved on.

When a trademark lapses, the registered protection goes with it. The name you have been trading under for ten years is no longer a registered mark. Someone else can apply for a similar one, and your options for stopping them are narrower and more expensive than they were. You may still have some rights from simply trading under the name, but proving them takes time and money in a way that holding the registration never did.

The date to watch is the ten year anniversary of the filing date, not the date the trademark was granted. IP Australia opens the renewal period ahead of the date and allows a short extra period afterwards at an extra cost. Those periods and fees are set by IP Australia and change, so check its site for the current ones.

The knock-on effect on everything else

A lapsed trademark rarely stays a trademark problem. If the brand is also your business name and your domain, a competitor who files the mark after you can challenge both. They can approach you about the business name you registered with ASIC, and complain about a domain that uses the same words. You can end up renewing the business name and domain in good faith while the thing that gave them their value has gone.

That is the reason to treat the three together. The simplest habit is to keep one calendar with all three dates, and a current email address on each record so the reminders reach a real person. If the trademark is in a founder's personal name or an old agent's details, update it before the date, not after.

This is why we renew trademarks as well as business names and domains. You search for your trademark on our site, select it and pay, and we handle the renewal with IP Australia. If you get a letter from us, it carries a QR code and a reference number, so you can scan the code or type the number in and pay. For the business name, search the name in our renewal box, choose one or three years and pay, with the ASIC renewal fee included. Domains and their renewals are managed from your Registry dashboard. Whether a mark still covers what you sell is a question for a trademark attorney, as we do not give legal advice. For a check of what is falling due, call our team on 1300 070 000, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Melbourne time.