Yale Fishman Associates is one of NYC’S finest legal firms. As they explain, a trademark is any word, name, symbol, or design, or even a combination of those, which is used in commerce with the purpose to identify and distinguish goods of a manufacturer or seller, and to indicate the source of those goods.
Trademarks protect companies’ names and identify their marks of products. Their main purpose is to make it easy for the consumer to distinguish competitors. Once a business starts using a certain mark to identify its company, a trademark is automatically assumed. So instead of reading the label, consumers can look for the trademark. For example, rather than asking a store sells who made a certain show, consumers can look for the identifying symbols.
Although as Yale Fishman Associates' list states, almost all trademarks are words, phrases, logos or symbols, it is also possible that shapes, sounds, fragrances or colors are registered as trademarks. Recently, the trademark law also included trade dress and antidilution protection. For example, the unique shape of a Coca-Cola bottle might serve as identifying features, and that feature falls generally under the term trade dress. But Fishman's Associates add that trade dress can be only protected if consumers associate that feature with a manufacturer and not a product in general.
Trademarks are governed by both state and federal law. There are two basic requirements that need to be met in order for a mark to be eligible for trademark protection. Yale Fishman Associates inform that it must be in use in commerce and it must be distinctive. The first requirement for use in commerce is found on the basis that trademark law is constitutionally grounded in the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. Thus, if a mark is not in use in commerce, registration may still be permitted if the applicant is able to establish in writing his intent to use the mark in commerce at a future date. The second requirement for distinction applies to a trademark's capacity for identifying and distinguishing particular good and distinguishing that good from other producer or source.
