What Is Trademark Law
Author: LeeAnna

Trademarks can be anything from words, phrases, logos, symbols,
or slogans, anything that will identify or distinguish a
person's goods or services manufactured or sold to indicate
their sources. Trademarks allow companies and businesses to be
identified by their symbols or logos by what they are selling.
For example, Nike is identified by the check symbol, and people
identify that symbol with athletic wear and sneakers, that is
Nikes symbol and cannot be used by anyone else. McDonald's
symbol is the Golden Arches, when people see those they know
who those arches belong to and what they sell. There are all
different types of trademarks; a service mark is the same as a
trademark except it promotes a service instead of a product. A
certification mark is a symbol, device, or name used by an
organization to vouch for their products. A collective mark is
a symbol, mark, phrase, or label, used by member of an
organization to identify goods, members, products, or services
they provide. Only members of particular groups or
organizations are allowed to use the collective mark, even the
group itself cannot use collective marks, only the members of
the group. Protecting your trademark with trademark law
consists of preventing others from using your mark. If others
were able to use your trademark, how would the consumers
distinguish your product from others?

The law will favor business that first use the mark they
choose, copyright laws come from the Lanham Act. This act is
designed to prevent trademark infringement. The law prohibits
uses of trademarks, trade names that are likely to cause
confusion about the source of a product or service.
Infringement law protects consumers from being misled by the
use of infringing marks and also protects producers from unfair
practices by an imitating competitor. The law does not give much
security to trademarks that consist of common or ordinary words
because they are not essentially unique. A person's name,
geographical terms, and terms used to describe the product or
service will receive little protection from the law. However,
these trademarks can be protected if they gain distinctive
recognition from long use and marketing. Trademarks that are
not used, abandoned, or used to generically describe a type of
goods or service, cannot be protected because if used, will
cause confusion about the product among the public.

Most believe that when they register a specific domain name,
the trademark is solely their own and nobody else can use it.
This may not be true however, not only must you register the
domain, but you have to use the business name enough to achieve
distinction. The best way to do this is through customer
awareness and marketing. Search around before you choose a
trademark and make sure that it is not already in use. It would
be very costly if an infringement lawsuit was brought against
you for using someone else's trademark. Using a professional
service to make a trademark search for you may be a good idea.


About The Author: Leeanna is an expert author writing for
Trademark Law http://www.inventionsandtrademarks.com