The Importance of Marking Your Marks With a Symbol

Before a trademark can be registered, it must first pass the first hurdle - meaning. What is this first hurdle?

A trademark is a mark that identifies a particular brand of goods or services. A trademark's mark must contain certain elements in order to qualify for registration. In other words, you need to put your name on the trademark. However, in order to do so, you must first establish your trademark's meaning.

Trademark meaning is a relatively simple concept. In trademark law, trademark meaning relates to the nature of a particular mark and its uses. Trademark means, at its most basic level, to distinguish one mark from another.

The reason why this phrase becomes important in discussing trademark means is because there are many different ways in which a trademark may be registered. However, even if a trademark were to be registered on all its bases, the mark still might not provide the protection it needs.

For example, a mark could be too general to be a useful trademark. The term "iPhone" would qualify as a trademark, but the question remains whether it would have the potential to be broadly useful. This is because of the large number of similar products on the market.

Therefore, in order to maintain the mark's distinctiveness, trademark laws often impose a "narrow brush" requirement on a mark. To simplify, this means that a trademark must be able to be registered as a single symbol or combination of symbols.

By this point, you might be asking what it takes to establish a mark's usefulness as a single symbol. What factors must a trademark's meaning have in order to avoid registering a trademark with a "narrow brush" rule? To answer this question, you first need to understand the type of trademark that is being applied for.

The answer to this question lies in the structure of trademark law. Trademarks are generally classified into two types - descriptive and generic. In the description trademark category, you will find marks that describe something.

On the other hand, a trademark that falls under the generic trademark category would describe the quality of a particular item. Such a trademark would be an example of the descriptive trademark.

Therefore, while both types of trademarks are necessary, some types of marks are more useful than others. Generic trademarks are usually more useful than descriptive trademarks. This is because they can easily be applied to different items, without changing the entire nature of a trademark.

On the other hand, most descriptive trademarks do not have the flexibility that generic trademarks possess. There are also a number of other factors that determine whether a trademark is more or less useful than another. All of these factors go a long way toward determining how a trademark's meaning should be established.

If you are hoping to establish your mark's meaning, you need to look at the traits that a trademark must possess in order to be successful. You also need to consider the characteristics of the mark you are trying to establish. You also need to research the trademarks that currently exist in order to figure out which marks are already in the public domain.