How to use trademarks to protect your brands

Your company creates unique products that are protected by trademarks. But are you using your marks correctly? What’s the difference between a registered and unregistered trademark? And what the heck is a service mark?

If you know how to properly apply and use your marks, you’ll not only make a better impression with your customers, but you’ll also guard against losing your special position in the market.

Keep it all straight by reviewing our trademark tips, and keep your marks working hard for you.

Understand trademarks and service marks

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, design — or even a sound, smell or color — or some combination of these, that helps consumers identify the source of a product and distinguishes it from other sources or products. A service mark, on the other hand, identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a physical product.

In addition to what they identify, marks can also develop a “secondary meaning,” indicating a level of quality the product or service has. Some well-known marks have acquired so much recognition and associated quality that they have become extremely valuable to the companies that own them. For example, McDonald’s® Corporation’s trademarks are worth far more than all of their restaurants combined because of the recognition and quality that the marks carry with consumers.

Beyond these two marks are trade dress, which refers to the overall look and feel of a product, and trade name, a word, name, term, symbol or combination that identifies a company itself rather than its products. For now, we’ll stick to explaining how to use the two most common — trademarks and service marks.

Use it or lose it

You can establish rights to a trademark simply by using the mark. You can use “TM” for trademarks and “SM” for service marks any time you want to claim rights to a mark. You may use the “circle-R” registered trademark designation, however, only after you have registered your mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. (You can also use the words, “Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office”). Registration lasts for 10 years (registrations granted prior to Nov. 16, 1989, have a 20-year term) and can be renewed at 10-year intervals (renewals granted before Nov. 16, 1989, last 20 years) for as long as the mark is in use.

Registering your mark with the USPTO provides extra advantages, including the ability to defend your mark in federal court in matters of interstate commerce, obtain registration in foreign countries and prevent importation of infringing products.

To make your trademark effective, you must “affix” it to a product, either directly or to a package, label or tag. Service marks must be affixed by using them in places such as signs, advertisements, letterhead and invoices. For registered trademarks, you must actually sell the product before you can register your mark with the USPTO.

If you don’t use your marks properly, you could lose your exclusive rights to them. In some cases, consumers have used the trademark names to refer to a type of product often enough that the trademark has become “generic” — describing a category, or species, of goods or services. For example, the makers of aspirin, cellophane and the escalator have lost these once-trademarked terms, which are now simply generic names for a type of product.

Mark it properly

Follow these guidelines to ensure you use your trademarks properly and retain your rights to them. These guidelines apply to service marks and to print as well as online text.

• Always distinguish marks from surrounding text with at least an initial capital letter.
• Always use your mark as an adjective followed by a noun that it modifies. The noun is generic for the type of product. You may also use the word “brand” after your mark to further guard against improper use. (Examples: Kleenex® facial tissue, Rollerblade® brand inline skates, Captiol One® No Hassle Cashsm credit card)
• Never use a mark as a noun. (Example: You ride a Harley-Davidson® motorcycle, you don’t ride a Harley®.)
• Never use a mark as a verb. (Example: You make photocopies on a Xerox® copier, you don’t Xerox® something.)
• Never make the mark plural. Instead, change the generic noun from singular to plural. (Example: Oreo® cookies, not Oreos®)
• Never make the mark possessive, or change it from its possessive form. (Example: Altoid® mints’ new flavor, not Altoid’s® new flavor; Jack Daniel’s® whiskey, not Jack Daniels® whiskey)

As a test, remove the mark term from the sentence and see if it still makes sense. If it doesn’t, you’ve probably used the trademark as a descriptive term or as a verb and not as an adjective followed by a generic noun.

Service marks are often used alone, since they are frequently statements rather than words. (Example: A.G. Edwards^sm Fully invested in our clients^sm.)

When placing the “TM” or “circle-R”, you don’t need to use it next to your mark every place the mark is used. Placing it in the heading or the first or most prominent place on the page is enough.

Add trademark symbols in your documents

You can easily add “TM” and “circle-R” symbols to your text. For example, Microsoft Word features several keyboard shortcuts for adding these symbols to your document.

On a PC:

• Registered trademark symbol (®) – Ctrl+Alt+R
• Trademark symbol (™) – Ctrl+Alt+T
• Your Autocorrect function may also convert certain characters to the correct symbol. Type “(r)” for ® and “(tm)” for ™ and Word should automatically change the text to the symbol.
• Unfortunately, there is no shortcut for a service mark. You’ll have to type “sm” and manually superscript it.

On a Mac:

• Registered trademark symbol (®) – Option+R
• Trademark symbol (™) – Option+2
• The Autocorrect and service mark instructions are the same as for a PC.

Finally, remember to keep your customer in mind. After all, trademark law isn’t intended to protect you and allow you to use your mark however you want. It’s designed to protect consumers from confusion about the source of products and services.

Need better results? Trademark issues are just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm