What is a Trademark?
As defined by the US Patents & Trademarks Office, “a trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.” A trademark need not be registered in order to have protectable rights to it, simply by using or displaying a mark acquires automatic trademark rights to the owner.
A trademark is any word, name, symbol (a logo), device, slogan, package design or combination of these that identifies and distinguishes a specific product from others in the market place. Even a sound or color combination can be a trademark under some circumstances. The term trademark is often used interchangeably to identify a trademark or service mark.
A trademark (sometimes called simply a “mark”) is any word, phrase, design or symbol used to market a product or service. Technically, a mark used to market a service, rather than a product, is called a service mark, though the term “trademark” is commonly used for both types of marks because they refer to the same group of legal protections. Owners of trademarks have rights under both federal and state law that give them the power in many cases to prevent others from using the same or confusingly similar trademarks. When picking a business name, take care to choose a name that will be likely to receive trademark protection and then take steps to protect your business name as a trademark. On the flip side, to make sure your business name won’t step on someone else’s rights to an existing trademark, you’ll have to do a trademark search.
top A trademark is any word, phrase, symbol, design, sound, smell, color, product configuration, group of letters or numbers, or combination of these, adopted and used by a company to identify its products or services, and distinguish them from products and services made, sold, or provided by others.
