What is a trademark used for?

Have you ever been worried about how to protect the uniqueness of your business and services? Or how to distinguish yourself from your fellow competitors in business? Our trademark attorney is here to enlighten you on what a trademark is used for and how you can use trademarks to protect yourself and your business.

What is a trademark used for?

A trademark is a sign or symbol that you can use to distinguish or unify your business goods or services from those of fellow competitors. A trademark is a right that is granted to own a word, phrase, logo, or aspect of packaging.  A registered trademark is legally enforceable and gives you exclusive rights to commercially use, license or sell it for the goods and services that it is registered under.

What do trademarks do?

The vital function of a trademark is to exclusively identify the commercial source or origin of products or services. So a trademark, as it is properly called, indicates the source or serves as a badge of origin. We can as well say that trademarks serve to identify a particular business as the source of goods or services. The use of a trademark in this way is known as trademark use. Certain exclusive rights attach to a registered mark.

How to do you get  Trademark Rights?

It should be noted that trademark rights generally arise out of the continuous use of, or maintaining exclusive rights over, certain products or services, assuming there are no other trademark objections.

Different goods and services have been classified by the International Classification of Goods and Services into 45 Trademark Classes (1 to 34 cover goods, and 35 to 45 services). The idea behind this system is to specify and limit the extension of intellectual property rights by determining which goods or services are covered by the mark, and to unify classification systems around the world.

How to avoid unauthorized use of someone’s trademark

Unauthorized use of trademarks results when you produce or trade fake consumer goods without the permission of the trademark owner. This is known as trademark infringement.

If you own a registered trademark, you can legally sue for trademark infringement if someone wrongfully uses your trademark without your permission. In the U.S., as well as many places around the world, you are required to formally apply to register your trademark with the governing agency in order to have the right to file a cause of action for trademark infringement.  How can you avoid the unauthorized use of someone else’s trademark? You need to conduct a Comprehensive Name Search. At Chisholm Law Firm, our Trademark Attorney takes the time to search common law trademark owners as well as those that have registered their trademark rights for our clients before applying to register new trademarks. This means that we identify unregistered trademarks that are still in use that may jeopardize our client’s ability to have their trademark registered. If we identify a threat to their registration, we provide them with a written legal opinion letting them know if we recommend that they move forward with registering their name, logo or slogan or if we advise that they build their company brand around something different. Our goal is to protect our clients’ legal interests. Although common law trademarks offer the holder less legal protection than registered trademarks, they can still compromise a registration.

Get in Touch

If you or someone you know is interested in registering a federal trademark to protect your brand, feel free to contact us. Our trademark attorney has a 100% success rate with trademark registrations (Disclaimer: Past results do not determine future outcomes) and we would love to speak with you during our free consultation about how we can assist you with your goals.