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Yesterday’s post was all about what a trademark is so today we’re going to talk about what a trademark is not. Knowing both sides of that coin will give you a clear idea if a trademark is right for you or not.
Let’s use yesterday’s
examples as a jumping off point:
·
PEACE is the
name of your new clothing line and your logo is the peace sign. Both of these
things appear on the tags that are attached to the clothing items. You have a
variety of designs and sayings that appear on the front of your clothing items,
e.g. the front of a t-shirt.
·
LOVE is the
name of your daycare services. Your slogan, Love
blooms here, appears on the web site, the brochures for new parents, the
signage inside & outside of the facility. There are also multiple heart
designs, created by you, used in your advertisements.
·
HAPPINESS is
the name you use for your invention, a new kind of food processor. You have
stacks & stacks of technical documents explaining how your invention works
and every page has the name at the top.
POSSIBLE
TRADEMARKS:
|
NOT A
TRADEMARK:
|
|
PEACE
|
Name & heart logo as shown on the tags
|
Designs & sayings on the front of the clothing
|
LOVE
|
Name; slogan since it identifies the services and is
used in the offering of those services
|
Multiple heart designs
|
HAPPINESS
|
Name of the food processor
|
Technical documents
|
So why are those items not
trademarks? The main reason is that none of them identify the source (i.e. the
origin) of the goods/services. Let’s do the breakdown explanation you all know
by now that I love.
PEACE has a
number of designs and sayings that appear on the clothing items, e.g. the front
of a t-shirt. These items do not identify the clothing brand itself. They are merely
decorative or ornamental.
LOVE uses a
bunch of unique heart designs in their advertisements – billboards, leaflets,
newspaper ads, etc. – but these designs are not used on the web site, the
signage, etc. In other words, clients wouldn’t refer to these heart designs
when looking for this business.
-
These designs may
be eligible
for copyright protection. We’ll get into that area of intellectual property
at a later day.
HAPPINESS is
the name at the top of the technical documents, which is not the good to be
sold (i.e. the food processor) but rather is the technical explanation of how
the good works. If you’re looking for a food processor, you’re not going to
look for the technical mumbo-jumbo.
-
These technical
documents would be part of your patent
application. Again, we’ll explore that another day.
I hope this quick primer
helps explain what a trademark is AND helps you decide if going the trademark
route is right for you.
And if you’re still not sure,
leave a comment or drop me a line – shannon at tmexpress dot com
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