1 Trademarks establish goodwill between the source of a product or service and the consumer. Trademarks uniquely associate a product or a service with a particular source, even if that source is unknown to the consumer. Thus, trademarks help businesses build and retain demand for their products and services while enabling consumers to quickly identify and make a purchase decision based upon a recognized trademark.
Trademarks identify the commercial origin of a product or a service.
A common, and often costly, mistake made by start-up companies is to equate trade name registration with trademark registration. Reserving or registering a company or corporate name with the Secretary of State is not equivalent to trademark registration and is not an indication that the name is available for use without risk of infringement. Registration of a corporate name usually means only that the identical name was not registered with the Secretary of State by another entity. Thus, searches and trademark registration are critical. Nonword marks such as letters and numbers also may be classified as fanciful, but acronyms for descriptive terms may still be deemed descriptive.