A generic name cannot be appropriated as a trademark. A descriptive term is a word that informs the purchasing public about the characteristics, quality, functions, uses, ingredients, components or other properties of a product or conveys comparable information about a service. Whether or not a term is descriptive depends on its meaning to the public in relation to a particular product or service. Trademark protection for descriptive marks is extended if the purchasing public recognizes the mark as denoting only one seller or source. In contrast to descriptive marks, suggestive marks are terms that merely suggest, but do not describe, the quality or functions of a particular product or service.
Suggestive terms require imagination on the part of the observer.
If the characteristics are not instantly apparent and the consumer must follow a multi-step reasoning process to ascertain what product qualities the term suggests, the term is suggestive and may be protected. The strongest of all marks is the fanciful and arbitrary mark, which consists of words that have been invented for the sole purpose of functioning as a trademark. These marks comprise words that are either totally unknown in the language or are completely out of common usage, as with obsolete or scientific terms. Arbitrary marks comprise common words, symbols or pictures used with goods or services in a totally arbitrary and non-descriptive sense. If your company's trademark is distinctive, you should then evaluate whether any other party is utilizing a confusingly similar mark to describe goods or services that are similar to the goods or services of your company.