How to trademark a brand

[AyeshaH]

Hello!


If I want to start a clothing brand how do I trademark the brand? What is the cost of doing it on my own or is a lawyer necessary? And how long does it take approximately? Is it necessary to trademark the brand name and them still register a company to start trading or is it fine to sell the branded items once the trademark is in place?

 

[saturnz]

contact CIPC

 

[AyeshaH]

Okay, thank you!

 

[Swa]

I was looking into this myself and it seems they publish the full details of the applicant on their site. However I also saw some that were incomplete. Now apart from the fact that not all services are rendered from an address and the CIPC database is probably massively out of date by now this seems like a security risk. I know I can probably get a Postnet address to circumvent it but is this not against the POPI?