Brand Defense: Protecting Trademarks and Copyrights Part III
Aug 25, 2008
For agencies and marketers creating ads and promotional materials, this crash course on proper use of trademarks provides guidelines for carrying their own brand banners high and avoiding infringement on others.
What's a Trademark?
A trademark is any word (Xbox video game system); name (the designer Vera Wang); symbol or device (the subway route symbols for certain trains on the New York subway system); slogan (Got Milk?); package design (the Coca-Cola bottle); sound (the MGM lion); or color (the blue Styrofoam insulation board) that identifies and distinguishes a product or service from all others in the marketplace. Even a scent can be trademarked.
There are also two other types of marks:
• Collective marks, which signal membership in a group or an association. Only members of the group can use the collective mark. The AFLCIO and the National Association of Realtors represent this group.
• Certification marks, which indicate that a product or service meets established standards of quality, or certifiably comes from a particular region. An example is Roquefort cheese, aged only in the limestone caverns of Mount Combalou near the village of Roquefort in southwestern France.
ADJECTIVE: Your mark should always be used as an adjective, not a noun.
CONSISTENT: Use your mark in the same way each time you present it.
IDENTIFICATION OR STATUS: Always identify your mark as a trademark or service mark.
DISTINCTIVE: Make your mark stand out from surrounding text by using all capital letters or bold face type, italics, or a unique font. INTA offers three different brochures on proper trademark use- for business; for small business owners; and for media and the public-on the INTA Web site.
Always use a trademark as an adjective, never as a noun or verb. Children play with Lego blocks, not Legos. You send a package via FedEx, you don't FedEx it.
Pluralize the generic word, not the trademark. Give out Tic Tac candies, not Tic Tacs.
Get [how to write] possessive. Do not modify a trademark from its possessive form, or make a trademark possessive. You visit a Friendly's restaurant, not a Friendlys restaurant.
Avoid modifying trademarks. No hyphenating, creating new combinations, or using abbreviations. A celebrity has not been "over-Botoxed;" she's received many "Botox injections." Similarly, do not modify McDonald's into "McPaper," "McMansion," or any other derivatives.
Check yourself. Try removing the trademark from the sentence and see if the sentence still makes sense. In the example, They entered the 7-Eleven, taking out the trademark "7-Eleven" renders the sentence meaningless. But if the trademark is used correctly, as an adjective-They entered the 7-Eleven store- the sentence makes sense even without the trademark.
Know the difference between trade names and trademarks. A trade name is simply a corporate or business name, and therefore a proper noun. So trade names get all the rights accorded any proper noun-you can use the possessive form, and you don't need to use a generic term after them. However, a trade name can also function as a trademark, depending on the context. If the name is used as a noun ("These devices are made by TiVo"), it's a trade name. But if it's used as an adjective ("You can get your TiVo recorders here"), it's a trademark.
For more on Trademarks and Copyrights:
Brand Defense: Protecting Trademarks and Copyrights Part I
Brand Defense: Protecting Trademarks and Copyrights Part II
Brand Defense: Protecting Trademarks and Copyrights Part III
