Good day everyone,

I'm new to this forum and it looks like there will be a lot of good information for me to learn from.

We've just registered our business as a PTY LTD and are now onto the next scary thing: Trademarks.

As a new start up, we obviously don't have lots of money to throw around, but would like to do things right from the start. I've been in contact with Trademark lawyers and the info that I've received from them I already understood ie what classes to register in etc. They've quoted me R21K to register 4 logos.

My question is this: I can register through CIPC for R590 per logo and R190 per search. A quick search revealed that the names/logos I'd like to Trademark doesn't exist. Our logos contain the name and slogan.

If we only want to register either a logo or a name, which one would be best? I understand that if your logo change somewhere down the line it'll make the TM invalid and I think that both the logos and the names are strong. Would you recommend in that case to TM the logo or the name?

Also, would it be worth taking the change to register without the thorough search? We basically have about 15 logos/names we'd like to TM on the medium term, but will start off with 4 only.

Any advice with regards to this will be much appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Vern