Choosing A Good Trademark

When you are ready to launch a new product or service and are thinking about selecting a new trademark, please remember that the amount of legal protection you will be able to obtain for your mark depends upon what mark you select. If a mark is very descriptive of your product or service, it will be difficult to obtain trademark protection, and the scope of your protection may never be very great. If, on the other hand, you select a mark that is only suggestive of your product or service, or a mark that is fanciful, you will find it easier to obtain strong trademark protection, and you will be less likely to find yourself in conflict with other similar marks.

Following are some trademarks that are strong because they are not descriptive of their product:

• Apple for computers
• Mushroom for shoes
• Kodak for film

For marketing purposes, you may want to link a fanciful or suggestive mark with a word or phrase describing your product or service, i.e. Kodak Film, so that your customers do not have to guess about what you are offering. But this is far better than choosing a descriptive mark that has great potential for conflict with other descriptive marks and that will never be granted broad legal protection. Taking this approach is likely to save you lots of money in attorney's fees and many problems down the road.

Once you have selected one or more marks, we will be happy to help you search them and register them.