What does a trademark do?
A trademark provides protection to the owner of the mark by ensuring the exclusive right to use it to identify goods or services, or to authorize another to use it in return for payment. The period of protection varies, but a trademark can be renewed indefinitely beyond the time limit on payment of additional fees.
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Establishing trademark rights - use and registration
Trademark rights, such as the right to exclusive use of a
trademark, can be established through actual use in the marketplace or
registration with a trade marks office. In general, such rights will only apply in the jurisdiction where the trademark is used or
registered, a quality which is sometimes known as territoriality.
However, there are a range of international trademark laws and systems
which facilitate the protection of trademarks around the world.
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Trademark
A trademark (Commonwealth English: trade mark)[1] is a distinctive
sign of some kind which is used by a business to identify itself and
its products and services to consumers, and to set the business and its
products or services apart from those of other businesses. A trademark
is a type of intellectual property, and in particular, a type of
industrial property.
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Maintaining trademark rights
Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual use of the
trademark. These rights will diminish over time if a mark is not
actively used. In the case of a trademark registration, failure to
actively use the mark, or to enforce the registration in the event of
infringement, may also expose the registration itself to removal from
the register after a certain period of time.
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Enforcing Trademark Rights
The extent to which a trademark owner may prevent unauthorized use
of trademarks which are the same as or similar to its trademark depends
on various factors such as whether its trademark is registered, the
similarity of the trademarks involved, the similarity of the products
and/or services involved, and whether the owner’s trademark is well
known.
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Trademark - Consumer protection and confusion
One of the public policy objectives given for trademark law is
consumer protection, that is, to prevent the public from being misled
as to the origin or quality of a product or service. A trademark owner
also uses trademark law to prevent unauthorised third party use of a
mark which is identical to the owner’s mark, or which is so similar
that use of the other party’s mark would result in a likelihood of
confusion.
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Comparing trademark with patents, designs and copyright
While trademark law seeks to protect indications of the commercial
source of products or services, patent law generally seeks to protect
new and useful inventions, and registered designs law generally seeks
to protect the look or appearance of a manufactured article.
Trademarks, patents and designs collectively form a subset of
intellectual property known as industrial property, because they are
often created and used in an industrial or commercial context.
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Trademarks and Domain Names
The advent of the Domain Name System has led to attempts by
trademark holders to enforce their rights over domain names that are
similar or identical to their existing trademarks, particularly by
seeking control over the domain names at issue. As with dilution
protection, enforcing trademark rights over domain name owners involves
protecting a trademark outside the obvious context of its consumer
market, because domain names are global and not limited by goods or
service.
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Small Businesses with BIG NAMES: Protect Your Trademarks and Reap the Rewards
You’re a small business owner with a hot new product or service and you’re deciding what to name it. Perhaps you’ve even hired a graphic designer to create a flashy logo to go with it. You may have ruled out trademark registration as too expensive or even unnecessary because you only plan to sell in your local area.
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Trademark: Do I Need One for My Business Name and Logo?
Wondering if a trademark is important to you as a business owner? Let's start with the basics. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or logo that distinguishes and identifies the source of goods of one company or person from another.
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The Role of Trademarks in Marketing
Peter Drucker, a well-known management guru, said that a “business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.” Intellectual property plays a role in both of these functions, and specifically trademarks are of primary importance in the marketing process
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