Does a trademark relate to a Patent?
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Does a trademark relate to a Patent? Video Transcript
In this section, I am going to discuss how a trademark relates to a patent. Trademarks protect brands and identities of a business. It could be slogan, a name like Nike: Just Do It. It could be the swoosh mark. It could be the logo for example. But these are logos and brands that distinguish not just the business, but distinguish a set of goods and services offered by that business potentially from others in the marketplace. They are used to differentiate goods and services from one owner to another. So trademark rights are indefinite potentially. As long as the trademark is being used, as long as the name Coca-Cola is being used, it can last forever. It gives a very strong protection of that brand or mark when it becomes valuable. The test for challenging trademarks is likelihood of confusion. Would a reasonable consumer confuse another name with this name as being the same product or service? If so, that is often a way to challenge whether or not an infringer is actually infringing the trademark or not. If the mark is really famous, like Coca-Cola, there is an even higher level test which is dilution, whether there is any dilution of that mark. So trademarks protect names and slogans and logos of a business. They do not protect inventive concepts. They do not protect the useful things that are new in that business. For example, they do not protect the useful aspects of the inventions generated by that business. The name Coca-Cola might just protect the name but not the formula. The formula could be protected by patents, if the company wanted to, that would give them a limited protection right if that was new and not obvious. It could also be protected trade secret. Trade secret is where it is not disclosed to the world as in the case of Coca-Cola. The useful aspect of the invention that that business generates, which might be associated with the logo, the name or the mark, is protected by patent generally. Patents protect useful, new, inventive concepts that are different than the logo and name and slogan. The slogan, name and logo only protects against similar looking names, logos and slogans or similar sounding names, logos and slogans, but the patent protects the useful article, whether someone can make the same useful article and manufacture, sell it, and make money and that is why patents protect inventions. Trademarks do not protect inventions. They protect logos and marks and the test for patent are very different. It is not the likelihood of confusion or dilution but rather the test of patents is literally does someone else infringe the claims of a patent. Claims of the patents are written to make sure the boundaries of the inventive concept are properly protected. So if you are looking to protect an invention, you should be filing a patent. If you are looking to protect the name or logo or slogan, you should be filing a trademark.