The Importance of Registering a Trademark – Market Value

Why is protecting a brand a strategic decision and not just a legal formality?

When thinking about a company's assets, the first things that usually come to mind are tangible assets: premises, machinery, inventory, accounts receivable.

However, in recent decades this landscape has changed radically. Studies on the valuation of intangible assets show that, while in the seventies and eighties a company's value depended primarily on its tangible assets, today a growing part – in many cases the majority – of that value lies in intangible assets, and the brand is usually the most important of these.

The reason is simple: a brand is not just a name or a logo. It's the bond a company builds with its customers, the sign that allows them to recognize a product or service among many alternatives and trust that it will maintain a certain level of quality. That bond, once established, has real economic value (and, like any valuable asset, can be lost if not properly protected).

The brand as a heritage asset, not just as an identity

Registering a trademark is not a mere administrative formality: it transforms a commercial relationship into an enforceable property right against third parties. A registered trademark can be sold, licensed, contributed to a new company, included in a company's valuation for mergers or acquisitions, and even offered as collateral to obtain financing. None of these operations are feasible for a sign that the company uses in the market but has never registered in its name.

In other words: while an unregistered trademark is, at best, a fragile commercial reputation (in addition to all the risks that this implies, given that our legislation only protects registered trademarks), a registered trademark is an asset, with an identifiable owner and a scope of protection defined by law.

What happens if the trademark is not registered?

The Andean regime of industrial property (Decision 486 of the Andean Community, applicable in Peru) only recognizes protection for registered trademarks; except for very specific exceptions: thus, one can oppose the registration application of a third party in bad faith or defend a pre-existing right in a specific case (for example, in the case of well-known trademarks), but it does not grant the exclusivity or legal security that registration does provide.

In practice, this creates a well-known risk: a company builds a brand over years—investing in advertising, acquiring customers, becoming known in its locality or sector—but never registers it. A competitor, or even a third party unrelated to the business, can register that same mark (or a very similar one) with INDECOPI. If they succeed, the new registered owner has the exclusive right to use it, and the original company may be forced to mount a complex defense, buy its own trademark, change its business identity, or, in the worst-case scenario, stop using the name by which its customers already recognize it.

Recent examples: what the registry does protect

Peruvian administrative jurisprudence offers concrete and recent examples of why it is advisable to register a trademark and not rely solely on commercial use. In 2026, the Specialized Chamber for Intellectual Property of the INDECOPI Tribunal—in the second administrative instance, confirming the decision of the Distinctive Signs Commission in the first instance—upheld the registration of two trademarks despite oppositions from third parties.

In the first case, the US company PepsiCo opposed the registration of the trademark "Loritos tu marca de confianza" (Loritos, your trusted brand), applied for to distinguish products in Class 30 of the Nice Classification (foods such as coffee, rice, or salt), considering it similar to its trademark "Doritos," registered for products in the same class. The Court dismissed the risk of confusion: despite the overlap in products, the marks presented sufficient differences on the phonetic, graphic, and conceptual levels—while "Loritos" evokes a bird (the parrot), "Doritos" is a made-up word with no inherent meaning.

In the second case, Puma SE opposed the registration of "The Puna," a brand dedicated to the sale of alpaca garments, arguing that it partially reproduced its "Puma" trademark and could generate confusion, improper association, or unfair advantage of its prestige. The Court upheld the registration, determining that both marks present clear differences in structure, pronunciation, and overall perception that allow consumers to distinguish them without difficulty. A particularly relevant point for any business owner: INDECOPI clarified that, while "Puma" is a well-known trademark in Peru, this status does not automatically preclude the registration of other marks—it must always be assessed whether there is, in fact, a real risk of confusion or unfair advantage; simply invoking the reputation of the opposing trademark is insufficient.

What is relevant in both cases is not only the favorable outcome, but the mechanism that made it possible: the applicants were able to defend themselves because they already had a pending registration application. This registration gave them a formal place in the proceedings, the opportunity to present technical arguments, and ultimately, an industrial property title enforceable against any third party.

A decision that should be made early

Registering a trademark does require planning ahead: before investing in brand development, it's advisable to verify that the mark is available, and once chosen, register it as soon as possible. Waiting until the mark is already well-known—or worse, until a conflict arises—drastically reduces your options.

Ultimately, protecting a brand is not an unnecessary expense or just another bureaucratic hurdle. It's the way to transform an intangible asset, often the company's most valuable, into a tangible, transferable, and enforceable property right.