What is a trademark?

A trademark is the link to the customers - it is the mark that is used to distinct a company's products and services from the products and services offered by their competitors. The trademark thus is a signal to the customers about the origin of the product. Once a customer has bought something they are satisfied with there is a good chance that the customer will buy the same mark again. But a trademark can be more than that - the trademark represents the company's values.

A trademark can consist of one or more words, a logo, a figure or a combination of these elements. It could e.g. also consist of the products look or its packaging - it is almost only the imagination that is the limit. But it is important that the trademark is distinctive i.e. that it is not descriptive of the product. The trademark has to be suitable to differentiate your products from the competitors' products. Therefore the trademark must not describe the product itself neither can it be the common description of the product. This is what distinctiveness is about.

In practice trademarks are divided into word marks and figurative marks. The word marks contain only letters and/or numbers in a common font, while figurative marks are a generic term for all other types of trademarks, including logos, words in special graphic versions, 3 dimensional marks, moving marks etc.

A word mark will give you the broadest protection as it gives you the exclusive right to the word not taking into consideration in which form the word is used. The figurative mark on the other hand only provides you with protection for the specific presentation. In return the figurative mark also provides you with protection of the figurative part of the trademark. Registration of the trademark in black/white usually entails protection of the mark in other colors and color combinations.