What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?

What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?

Date: August 07, 2007

Learn what a trademark and service mark are in this short post.

What is a trademark?

A trademark is a word, name, symbol, or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others.

What is a Servicemark?

A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms “trademark” and “mark” are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.

Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the USPTO. The registration procedure for trademarks and general information concerning trademarks is described on a separate page entitled “Basic Facts about Trademarks

Source: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#mark

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