A trademark helps your business and products standout from all of the other businesses and products out there. When someone sees your company’s trademark, they distinctly identify it with your business. A trademark can be anything from your company’s name, to your tagline or logo, or anything else that distinguishes your company from the competition. However, there are two types of “marks”: trademarks and service marks. Although they are both used to identify your business, a trademark is used to distinguish your company from the competition and a service mark is used to identify what type of service you provide.

You can have your trademark protected if it uniquely identifies your product from generic products. For example, McDonalds’ golden arches have become their trademark, as that symbol alone uniquely identifies McDonalds from any other fast food chain. Many times a company’s name and logo are its most valuable assets, which is why it is important to register any words or symbols used to identify your company as trademarks. This ensures that no other US company can use your ‘marks’ to deceive consumers into believing that their products are your products and that the consumer is purchasing something made by your company. You can also register your trademarks with the US Customers Service to prevent international goods from coming into the US if they infringe on your protected trademark(s).

When deciding on a trademark for your company – whether it is your company name, logo, tagline, or anything else – it is important that you search current trademarks to determine if it has already been claimed, in order to avoid an application denial and loss of your application fees. Even if you don’t plan on registering your ‘mark’, this search is still important to make sure that you don’t infringe on any other registered trademarks. Doing so could mean being sued (and losing since you were a ‘willful infringer’) and causing customer confusion between your products and the other company’s products.

Lastly, unregistered ‘marks’ could also be common law trademarks and leave you vulnerable to the consequences listed above. Therefore, it is best to do a thorough trademark search and not use any ‘mark’ that is already being used by another company or business.

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