The Trade Mark Act allows any "sign" to be registered. Most registered trade marks are words, logos or combinations of both. Think of supermarkets and household names - TESCO, WAITROSE, KODAK, FERRARI, ESSO.

Words and letters may be registered on their own or with logos.

If you think a big companies like Nike and their distinctive tick, they will have registered both the word only and the tick (the device) and both together.

Your decision about which combination to register will depend on a number of factors:

Costs. If you register your trade mark in all the above combinations then this will of course cost more money as you will have to apply more than once. The advantage of this however is that you will be afforded the greatest protection from trade mark infringement.

Is your logo permanent? The life of a trade mark is 10 years. So whilst the name of your trademark might not change, your logo might so give this some thought.You can always make another application in the future.

You will gain protection in whatever you register, so again give this some thought. Some people are concerned that if they filed their word and logo or word alone it will leave them vulnerable to others trying to expolit differnt variations of their mark. Whilst technically this is true, infringement rights will extend to similar marks.

The best idea is to get legal advice!