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GeminiWe are excited to announce a new strategic partnership between Spark Interact and Baxter IP, a leading Australian intellectual property firm. This collaboration allows us to offer clients a more integrated service combining branding, design, and digital development with expert support in protecting trademarks, patents and design rights.
Recently, we welcomed Dr Qi Zhang, Principal at Baxter IP, to our office for an insightful discussion on the value of intellectual property for businesses. The conversation confirmed a shared commitment: helping organisations not only create powerful brands, but also protect the innovations and assets that drive their long-term success.
In this post, you’ll discover how trademarks, patents and design rights can unlock long-term value for your brand, products and innovations. More importantly, you’ll see how Spark’s new partnership with Baxter IP gives you access to a powerful combination of creative strategy and legal protection – helping you not just build something remarkable, but make sure it stays uniquely yours.
Why Intellectual Property Matters for Businesses
Intellectual property (IP) is about protecting the things that make your business unique; your name, your products, your innovations. It gives legal weight to your ideas and assets, transforming creativity and invention into protected commercial value.
From the moment a business launches a new brand or product, it becomes vulnerable to imitation. Without IP protection, even the most recognisable or innovative assets can be copied. When branding, design, and innovation are aligned with the right IP strategy, businesses are positioned not just to compete but to lead.
For example, a business that has developed a distinctive logo and brand name may think about trademark protection to ensure competitors cannot use similar marks to take advantage of the brand’s reputation. Another business developing a cutting‑edge medical device or software algorithm might need a patent to prevent others from copying those technical innovations. And a company with a unique product aesthetic could consider design rights to protect the visual appearance of the product.
Spark’s experience in branding and digital strategy enhances client visibility and engagement. Baxter IP’s expertise ensures that what clients create is not only recognisable and differentiated, but also safeguarded and translated into commercial value. Together, we can help businesses convert creativity and invention into protected, strategic assets.
Trademark: Protecting Brand Identity
A trademark protects the unique signs that distinguish your goods or services in the marketplace, such as a business name, brand mark or slogan. When registered, a trademark gives you exclusive rights in the relevant market category. This means you can:
- Prevent others from using similar names or marks that could confuse customers or dilute your brand.
- Reinforce brand credibility and consumer trust, especially when entering competitive or regulated markets.
- License or sell the trademark as an asset, creating potential new revenue streams or increasing business valuation.
- Protect the longevity of your brand identity, making it harder for others to exploit your brand equity.
A perfect example is Nike. The swoosh symbol and the word “Nike” are globally protected trademarks. These registrations allow Nike to defend its brand identity from counterfeiters and copycats, maintaining a strong and consistent market presence.
Closer to home, Kennards Hire a well-known Australian equipment hire company servicing construction and infrastructure sectors has built a strong brand identity across hundreds of locations. Their registered trademark protects their name and logo, ensuring competitors can’t imitate or misuse the brand. This has helped them grow from a single family business into a national operator while maintaining customer trust and market differentiation in a competitive industry.
Baxter IP assists businesses in ensuring trademarks are properly scoped, aligned with business activity, and suitable for protection both in Australia and internationally.
Patent: Protecting Innovation and Technical Advancements
Patents safeguard inventions, whether that’s a new product, a manufacturing process, or a software algorithm, by granting the inventor exclusive rights to use and commercialise that innovation.
For forward‑thinking businesses, a well-executed patent strategy can:
- Create a defensible market advantage, preventing competitors from replicating core innovations.
- Attract investment, by demonstrating that your ideas are protected and commercially viable.
- Generate revenue streams through licensing to partners or other industry players.
- Deter unauthorised use, giving you the legal grounds to stop copycats or reverse-engineering.
One of the most striking examples of this in action is Dyson. While known for its cyclone vacuum technology, it was Dyson’s early and deliberate focus on patent protection, securing more than 1,000 patents globally, that gave the company its edge. These patents were instrumental in helping Dyson attract investors when the business was still proving itself. The patents made the innovation tangible, defensible, and most importantly, investable.
A similar strategy has long been used by Apple, which patents not only hardware features but also user interface designs and even gesture controls. These patents serve a dual purpose: they protect against infringement and act as strategic assets in commercial negotiations, legal disputes, and market positioning.
Closer to home, Emesent, a Brisbane-based startup and CSIRO spin-out, provides a standout Australian example. Emesent’s Hovermap technology which uses autonomous drones and LiDAR to map underground and hard-to-reach spaces is underpinned by a robust patent portfolio. These patents were a major factor in raising over $40 million in venture capital, and they continue to play a role in building trust with mining giants like BHP and Rio Tinto.
These real-world cases highlight a key truth: protecting your innovation early opens doors. It’s not just about stopping others from copying you, it’s about establishing credibility, attracting serious funding, and turning technical ideas into strategic business assets.
Through our partnership with Baxter IP, Spark can now offer clients a direct pathway to this kind of IP-led growth. Baxter IP’s patent experts provide deep technical insight and commercial acumen, helping innovators with everything from thorough patent searches to drafting enforceable claims and aligning protection strategies with long-term business goals.
Design Rights: Protecting Product Aesthetics and Visual Features
Design rights protect the visual appearance of a product, its shape, configuration, pattern or decoration. These rights are especially important for businesses where design is a key selling point.
With design registration, you can:
- Stop others from copying the look of your product.
- Strengthen the commercial value of your visual assets.
- Differentiate your brand through distinctive design.
A high-profile example is Coca‑Cola, whose contour bottle shape is protected as a registered design. The shape is so iconic that it is instantly recognised without the need for any text or label. Design registration prevents other beverage companies from using similar shapes that could mislead consumers or erode Coca‑Cola’s distinctiveness.
Another compelling case is Alessi, the Italian homeware brand known for its strikingly designed kitchen products. Alessi’s success lies not just in functionality but in visual design and registering those designs has been critical to preserving their competitive edge in high-end retail.
Design rights complement trademarks and patents because they focus on how a product looks, rather than how it functions, widening a business’s protective scope.
Design Rights: Protecting Product Aesthetics and Visual Features
Design rights protect the look of a product, its shape, pattern, configuration or decorative elements, rather than how it functions. For many businesses, especially those in competitive or design-led markets, these visual features are what make a product recognisable and desirable.
By registering a design, you gain exclusive rights to the appearance of your product. This means you can:
- Prevent competitors from copying your product’s visual identity
- Protect key brand assets, especially when product aesthetics drive customer recognition
- Strengthen differentiation, especially in crowded markets where first impressions matter
Take Coca‑Cola’s contour bottle arguably one of the most iconic shapes in product design. Its distinctive silhouette has been protected by design rights for decades, helping the brand maintain recognition even without a label. The shape alone conveys the brand’s identity and heritage, and it’s protected accordingly.
For a more practical example, consider FLEXiSKiP, an Australian business that reimagined waste collection with its foldable, flat-packed skip bin. Not only is the idea clever and eco-friendly, its unique appearance and construction were also eligible for design protection. By securing IP rights over the bin’s distinctive form, the business protected a competitive advantage that others couldn’t easily replicate.
While often underutilised, design rights are one of the simplest and fastest ways to gain enforceable protection over the visual elements of your brand and products the parts people see first. By focusing on how a product looks rather than how it functions, design rights complement trademarks and patents, expanding your overall IP protection strategy.
How IP and Branding Work Together to Support Growth
Many businesses approach branding and intellectual property as separate considerations. We believe they must be aligned from the outset.
Here’s how businesses can benefit by integrating branding with IP strategy:
Stronger Brand Identity
When you choose a name or logo with trademark potential, you avoid the risk of future rebranding due to infringement.
More Informed Creative Decisions
By involving trademark experts early, brand designers can steer towards distinctive, registrable marks rather than generic or descriptive ones.
Early Protection of Inventions
Discussing patents at the ideation stage allows for timely protection before public disclosure, which is critical to eligibility.
Product Differentiation Through Design
Visual features can be strategically protected via design registration, adding another layer of brand uniqueness.
Smarter Market Entry and Expansion
Trademarks and patents provide legal certainty when launching into new geographic or product markets, reducing risk.
A Partnership That Helps You Grow with Confidence
This partnership reflects our shared belief that creative excellence must be matched with strategic protection. By combining Spark’s branding, web development and strategic thinking with Baxter IP’s deep expertise in intellectual property, our clients gain better support to build brand value, protect innovation and seize opportunities with confidence.
If you are interested in exploring how trademarks, patents or design rights can play a role in your business growth, please get in touch with us. Whether you are refining your brand, innovating a new product, or entering new markets, the right protection strategy can make all the difference.
