Different Types Of Trademarks

Trademark protection is granted for words, logos and graphics that identify products of one firm as different from others. The prime function of trademarks is to prevent the customers from getting confused about the source of an item that they plan to buy.

A trademark must be exclusive and remarkably distinct for the consumers to recognize it easily even in a crowd of similar goods in the market. This uniqueness of trademarks is recognized by slotting them into four basic categories - suggestive, descriptive, generic, and arbitrary or fanciful.

A descriptive mark is one that provides description of a product with respect to its quality or characteristics like smell, functionality, form etc. Although a few descriptive marks that have acquired a secondary meaning in the marketplace, which the consumers can recognize as coming from a particular source, can be trademarked, this is not the usual case as descriptive marks are hardly ever unique.

Suggestive marks, as is evident by the name, suggest an essential feature of the good. However, the relationship between the name and the product is not obviously evident and it might require some amount of guess work on the part of the customers to comprehend it. For instance, ‘Hush Puppies’ is a popular brand name that markets shoes that ensure comfort and protect your feet from becoming sore. The prime reason behind such a name is that ‘barking dogs’ is slang for sore feet in some places in the US.

Fanciful marks on the other hand have no link whatsoever with the any quality or feature of the item. For instance, there is no real link between the symbol of a half bitten apple and the product name ‘Apple’ to the renowned computer manufacturer. Similarly, there is no link between the fanciful name Exxon and the items sold under the name as the name is a fruit of the imagination of the marketing agents of the company.

Finally, generic marks are the ones that describe a general category of the product like ‘olive oil’, and they cannot be granted any protection under trademark laws.

Discover more about Trademarks and learn how does an Patents protection increase the net worth of your business very fast.

Published by: Andrea Brown on October 29th, 2009 | Filed under Intellectual Property



Leave a Comment

rss feed