Trademarks, also known as commercial identifiers or marks, can be words, phrases, logos,
symbols, or images. Sometimes a trademark is made up of two or more of these. You can look at
just about any product and see one or more trademarks. A trademark is used to identify a
product as being unique to the company that owns it, so therefore trademarks are extremely
valuable to their owners. A trademark can be identified with a company to indicate quality,
flavor, scent, innovation, or any number of “ideas” that a company wishes to express.
Exclusive rights to a mark are partially established through commercial use, such as:
Entering the mark on state or county records
Applying the mark to signs and promotional materials
Using the mark on letterhead, business cards, and Web sites
Marks can also be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO),
which gives companies more leverage should a dispute arise over a mark. The mark will return a
result during trademark searches, discouraging others from trying to claim the mark as their
own, and registration puts the burden of proof of originality on any infringer.
A company may hold hundreds of trademarks. Microsoft provides a Web page listing its many
trademarked names for games, software, fonts, brands, etc., along with information on how to
cite each name. Microsoft also provides a page titled “General Microsoft Trademark
Guidelines,” that provides very specific instructions on referencing Microsoft trademarks and
logos in any kind of publication.
Some trademarked names become so common in the language that they can become generic.
This can be financially harmful to a company because the word or phrase is no longer
necessarily associated with its creator. Some common name brands that have become generic
include:
Xerox for copiers
Band-Aid for adhesive
AstroTurf for artificial grass
Jacuzzi for hot tub
Skilled intellectual property attorneys like those at GHS Law Partners are helpful to companies
at every stage in the trademark process. In the design phase, our attorneys perform thorough
searches for similar phrases or logos, preventing resources from being spent on an idea unlikely
to achieve registration. Once design is complete, GHS Law Partners assists in the preparation
and filing of the registration application and work with the USPTO to resolve objection and
answer questions. After registration is achieved, we monitor usage to assure the mark is kept in
commercial use and is not being misused or in danger of becoming generic.
GHS Law Partners, with our deep knowledge and expertise in business and intellectual property
law, understands the goals you want to achieve with your commercial identifiers and their value
to your company. We will help you weigh the risks and benefits of various types of marks and
allow you to make decisions you can be confident will be good for your business for years to
come.