What is Trademark?
The term Trademark is one of the legal terms that was used to describe "intellectual property". A "Trademark" is a word, symbol, design, a phrase, that is used to give an identity to the source of the goods of one party from others.
Trademarks often mistook as the name of the product.
For example,
The word “Tupperware®” was actually a Trademark, instead of a term that was used to describe a food container.
This is because the word “Tupperware®” was registered as a Trademark, thus, behind the word “Tupperware®”, there is a symbol of a circled R, ®.
Another example is the word “Pendrive®”. This is also a Trademark, which was often used to name a USB flash drive.
A service mark is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. Throughout this booklet, the terms "trademark" and "mark" refer to both trademarks and service marks.
The Symbols for Trademark
There are two types of Trademark, the registered and the unregistered.
For registered Trademarks, the symbol ® was used. This symbol is placed at the end of the word, phrase or a symbol.
For unregistered Trademarks, the symbol ™ was placed behind the word or phase that was intended to be used as a Trademark.
So, any other examples that you can come out with? Don't hesitate to name them in your comments!
References :
Trademark, Copyright, or Patent, United States Patent and Trademark Office. [Online], 29 September 2011.
URL: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/trade_defin.jsp
This article is quite helpful! I had always thought that tupperware is a common term used to describe the food container. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome! Glad this helps! =)
ReplyDeleteSo is "Google". The dictionary nearly adopted it for public use.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous : For "Google" it is a bit different. The word "Google" actually comes from the company name "Google Inc." The correct terminology of its search engine is "Google.com". What Goggle Inc. actually provides is in a form of service, rather than in product, thus there is no trademark behind the word "Google".
ReplyDelete