Best Practice for HealthTech Startup Trademark Protection

The earth has changed over the centuries, and human civilization has evolved. With the growing population and cities, technological development has taken place, but with the innovations, more diseases are now in the world than before.

However, the health care sector has become one of the best industries in the world. A cure or vaccine for any disease is discovered within a few years, at times even months. With this, the importance of the health tech sector has also increased in society.

What is Health Tech?

This is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. The health tech industry provides patients with cures and treatments. The medical and technological industries work together to introduce various medical equipment and digital solutions to handle any health-related issue proactively.

Henceforth, startups are also evaluating their business strategies due to the way health care is now accessed. The startups have further understood that they need to gain their trust for them to succeed in society and gain more customers. The most important factor in winning the customer's trust is the protection of the trademark.

How to Protect the Trademark?

To protect the health tech startup trademark, the companies should follow these recommendations, which would make the whole process easy.

1. Evaluate the Services Being Offered

This should be the first step for any startup. The trademark needs to be unique and distinctive. At the same time, it should also provide hints to the customers about what services the company provides. This can only be done if the startup decides what they are willing to offer to the customers.

2. Identify Product Categories

The next step involves applying for trademark registration. In the registration process, there is a list of trademark classes. While selecting the trademark, the startup business would have to research their trademark in product categories relevant to them.

The product categories include:

• Software and Application (Class 9) - Doctors, engineers, and even business professionals who are part of the health tech sector require certain software and applications to introduce various equipment or digital solutions in apps to provide treatments to patients.
• Pharmaceutical (Class 5) - This class is for those health tech startups that are including medicine as a part of their business. Some health tech companies try to include every aspect of the health sector as a part of their offered services, and pharmaceutical is one of them.
• Medical Equipment (Class 10) - This class includes the manufacturing of equipment or even just supplying it to various health care centers. If the health tech startup wishes to sell or even manufacture medical equipment, then they should choose a trademark from this category.
• Digital Services ans SAAS (Class 42) - Many health tech startups offer digital subscription services. Thus, the models would be required by the startups.
• Medical Services (Class 44)- Similarly, many health tech startups also deal with medical services.
• Personal and Social Services (Class 45) - At times, the startups also offer coaching, rehab, psychological therapy, and support. If the health tech business deals with such kinds of patient problems or social services, then you should choose a trademark from this category.

3. Apply for Trademark Registration in Key Market

After choosing the category from where you have decided the trademark, apply for the trademark registration in the key markets. Furthermore, for all the European Union countries for trademark protection, you need only one trademark application.

4. Monitor Your Trademark

You should be aware that many other startups tend to misuse the brand name and steal the company's ideas as well. The trademark can be copied as well. Hence, the originality of your health tech start-up is lost, and the thousands of dollars that you have spent on creating the brand's image are wasted if another company misuses your trademark.

Therefore, after searching and applying for a trademark, you should keep an eye out for other health tech startups and monitor to ensure no one copies the trademark.

The Final Verdict

This brings us to the end of the trademark protection for the health tech start-up. Starting your own business is a lifetime experience. A few hurdles are faced in the short term, but it's all worth it in the long run! Hard work and determination are the main elements that help the business become successful, but the market and economic trends are something that no one has any control over.

However, the one thing you do have control over is protecting your health tech start-up with a trademark. To protect the company's intellectual property rights, take precautionary steps to ensure that the company's trademark is well protected.

Contact a trademark adviser