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Trademark

A trademark is a mark which can be a name with a sign, color design, word/s or sentence/s with a design, graphic symbol or any other combination which identifies a specific service or product. It can be owned by businesses, legal entities or private individuals.

 

The trademark identifies the business, the product, the service or the entity who creates or sells the product or service and can be found on the product, its package, a label or voucher, letter paper, catalogs and even on business buildings or service offices.

 

The sign must be unique so that the public can relate it to the product or service it represents, and it has to be different from other products’ marks in the same category. There are also many symbols belonging to the state or linked to it or its institutions and trademark law protects them as well. In fact the mark is what differentiates one product from others of the same type.

 

Two characters usually accompany the mark: non-registered trademark characters are TM and registered ones are ®.

 

To register a mark the owner must first do a thorough check to make sure that there is no other one on the market. Then has to start the process of registration by submitting a trademark application in conjunction with an example of the mark, the type of product which the mark represents and of course he has to pay the fee. The mark can be renewed after 10 years.

 

If a registered after these 10 years the owner will have a monopoly on it and may sell it or give approval to someone else to use it.