How Trademarks Are Classified
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Trademark is a kind of IPR that safeguards certain symbols, words etc of a firm from being misused by others. The main objective of trademarks is to ensure that the customers are not subjected to any confusion with respect to the source of the product.
A trademark must be exclusive and remarkably distinct for the customers to identify it easily even amongst a crowd of similar goods in the market. The distinctiveness of a trademark can be determined by placing it in one of the trademark classifications - suggestive, descriptive, generic and arbitrary.
A descriptive mark recognizes the essential quality or some other features of the product like its utility or form. Unlike other marks that are exclusive to a specific commodity, a descriptive mark is not distinctive and is not capable of being trademarked unless it has acquired a secondary meaning and the customers start linking it exclusively with the product.
Suggestive marks, as the name indicates, suggest an essential feature of the product. However, it is usually the case that the mark and the commodity do not show any obvious relation and the customers might need to identify the link between the two. For instance, 'Hush Puppies' is a popular brand name that markets shoes that guarantee comfort and prevent soreness of your feet. The basic reason behind the brand name is that the problem of sore feet is loosely referred to as 'barking dogs' in some states in the US.
On the other hand, arbitrary marks are those that are not linked to the product. For instance, there is no real connection between the symbol of a half eaten apple and the brand name 'Apple' to the renowned computer manufacturer. In a similar way, fanciful marks are those that come from the creative mind of the manufacturer or come from old languages like Latin.
Lastly, generic marks are ones which describe a very broad category of items like 'olive oil' and are granted no protection under the existing trademark laws.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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