Zinwa logo now a registered trademark
THE Zimbabwe National Water Authority has successfully registered it logo as a trademark in a move that will now protect Zinwa from the abuse of its name and logo that has been going on for some time. A trademark is a legally protected symbol, sign, word or words recognisable as identifying or representing a company or products and services. An organisation that registers a trademark obtains exclusive rights to use the name, sign, symbols, word or words.
The trademark becomes part of the organisation’s intellectual property and the use of the trademark without approval or authority exposes such user to criminal and civil liabilities.
The Zinwa trademark is in respect of goods and services that include water treatment, water bottling, design of water storage works, water distribution, water treatment, boreholes drilling and consultancy.
The trademark also makes it easier for clients and stakeholders to authenticate goods, services and correspondences as coming from a particular organisation.
The registration of the trademark is a mile stone for Zinwa as its name has been unjustly used in a number of instances without authority.
In some cases, the Zinwa logo has been abused by bottled water dealers especially following the promulgation of Statutory Instrument 90 of 2013 which compelled all bottled water dealers to be registered with Zinwa as bulk water dealers.
This saw even unregistered bottled water producers having the Zinwa logo on their labels, misleading unsuspecting clients into believing that their water had been approved by the Authority.
The same applied to bulk water dealers whose number has ballooned over the years in major towns. A number of them, who get their bulk water either from undesignated sources or from uninspected sources, would use the ZINWA logo on their promotional documents purporting that Zinwa had given them the green light to operating.
While Zinwa took corrective action to root out these unscrupulous elements, the registration of the trademark will now give the organisation more legal insulation and remedy in the case of the abuse of its name and logo. Part of the action that Zinwa took to deal with unscrupulous bulk water dealers who were abusing its logo and name included publishing a detailed list of registered bulk water dealers on its website as well as roping in the police to help with the inspection of bulk water sources, trucks and dealers’ premises.
In some instances other organisations related to Zinwa would use the logo on their invoices or their staff would claim to be Zinwa staff members when collecting levies from irrigators or borehole owners in urban areas.
This opened the way even for criminal elements to dupe borehole owners and farmers of their monies. While some of the alert people would enquire with Zinwa first after receiving invoices or bills from suspicious people, some lost their money especially after these elements induced fear in them.
All these matters will now be a thing of the past following this breakthrough. Zinwa now has the necessary legal wherewithal to protect its reputation from abuse.
And now that Zinwa is actively on the ground providing other services that some other players in the market are also providing, having a registered trademark will now give at an edge over others as there would be ease of authentication of its products and services.
The services that Zinwa is providing include borehole drilling, borehole water testing, flashing, equipping and geo-physical surveys. The demand for these services have grown over the years, in turn prompting the sprouting of many players, some of whom have left clients stranded after vanishing with their money or after doing substandard work. Zinwa’s name will now become a traceable and authentic reference for service provision.
For more information you can contact the Zimbabwe National Water Authority Corporate Communications and Marketing department on callcentre@ zinwa.co.zw . You can also like the Zimbabwe National Water Authority Facebook Page or follow us on Twitter @zinwawater