Trademark protection for pharma companies

Pharmaceutical products are often the result of years of studies and huge investments. It is therefore crucial that once the products have been approved and are ready for the market, their names are registered as trademarks to protect them from third parties riding on their success or even counterfeiting them.

Pharma expert? Why your company needs one

Key in protecting a pharmaceutical name is the availability check. Knijff has developed an economical and swift service to carry out this search across differentcountries:  Multisearch ® .

As we always perform a pharma-in-use check during the pharmaceutical trademark searches, you can rest assured that the outcome of any search will take into account both the pharmaceutical trademark protection scope, and the latest case law about pharmaceutical names.

A specialist trademark attorney not only benefits you when it comes to assessing availability, but also during the registration process. We know exactly what trademark authorities will look for in the assessment, and which pharmaceutical products are similar, possibly leading to a conflict. Cases like these benefit from the input of a party that looks after your interests and knows your industry.

Connect with
our pharma
experts

“To be able to think along with my clients, I aim to be involved preferably from as early as the introduction stage of a trademark or product.”

Trix Ockeloen //
Trademark Attorney

Caroline Schreuder //
Trademark Attorney

Our clients

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& more on trademark pharma trademark protection

The Pharma Q & A

  • Our Multisearch® service is specifically developed to clear trademarks quickly and reliable across the world and is often used by large pharmaceutical companies. Multisearch® is a powerful solution for clearing your trademarks globally.

    Multisearch® has great advantages and is the ideal search to clear pharmaceutical trademarks:

    • Knijff offers several kind of searches from identical searches (to quickly see which names have the best potential), more profound searches (Screen) to full availability searches, conducted by our local agents with our overall opinion.

    • Knijff always performs a quick internet check on the use of a cited mark or the activities of the owner of the cited mark, in order to obtain more detailed information, which is relevant for determining the risk level involved.

    • Further, Knijff also always performs a pharma-in-use check during the pharmaceutical trademark searches.

    • In our search reports, next to the legal risk level, we also always provide you with a business risk level. There may be all kinds of reasons why a cited mark will not present a risk in practice or at least not a high risk, for example: the registration of the cited mark is subject to the use requirements and an internet check did not reveal any use of the mark or the registration of the cited mark covers the relevant goods but simply because the mark is filed for a large number of classes and the owner is evidently active in another field of business.

  • It takes years to develop a drug, and you want to be able to protect its name as and when needed. Early registration may lead to loss of your trademark right, while late registration gives your competitors a change to snatch your name. Our years of experience in registering trademarks for the pharmaceutical industry make us your ideal partner to guide you through the process. We will advise you when and how to start with the trademark searches. And when and how to register the trademarks.

  • We can provide you with an initial identical screening within 24 hours, and the results of an availability search within five working days. Do you need the results sooner? Then we can speed up the process to three days, subject to a priority fee. Searches outside the Netherlands generally take eight working days to complete.