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What Is Trademark Law?

By: Rex Stevenson

The Intellectual Property Law has three branches: Patent Law, Copyright Law and Trademark Law. Patent Law will protect any new inventions from stealing and will give its inventor full rights on it. Movies, drawings, paintings, etc. are a part of artistic works and in this case copyright is used to protect them from imitations and illegal distribution. Although copyright law protects the artistic expression it hasn't got anything to do with idea of the work.

Meanwhile, trademark law protects marks or names that are in connection with the merchandise or product. A trademark can be a word, color, sound, icon, image, phrase, or way of packaging that is acquired and utilized by an organization or corporation for easy recognition of their merchandise and services that will set them apart from other corporations or organizations. Services and not product merchandise, however, are identified by a service mark (which is similar to that of a trademark).

Actually trademark law keeps anyone from using a company's representation as theirs, in order to obtain benefits from selling illegally marked products. Also it helps a company's products from being copied and its reputation among its clients.

Trademark law also guarantees the liberty of competition by protecting the possessor of a mark. Clients may be confused when another company uses the same mark, so another good thing about trademark law is protecting them from any confusion concerning original products.

Artists are also influenced by the trademark law, no matter the field, it can be design, music, or literature. Also, they are guaranteed that their work will not be stolen or used in unapproved activities. Trademark law concerns any artistic title like domain names or characters and keeps away confusion regarding these titles.

Titles are at times protected under unjust competition and trademark laws. It is not protected by the copyright law. Protection of a title is granted when it accomplishes a secondary meaning. Secondary meaning is similar to that of the titles commercial appeal. Titles must also be popularly known to meet the criteria. Usually, titles of series are great trademark contenders. Also, titles in one merchandise can be protected in another type of merchandise. Lastly, one-shot titles are not consequently allowed to trademark protection.

Trade dress is the visual image when speaking about trademark laws. It includes all the shapes, design and packaging that are being used for a certain type of product. This will make sure that clients will recognize it when searching for a product.

Current legislation applies the trademark law in other fields like the internet. Here, trademark law protects domain names used by certain companies, online publications, or any type of original information given to the public. The punishment is the same for people who make illegal use of electronic creations.

Companies can use certain characters to represent their products. This way the characters become a representation of a certain product and help people identify that product with the company. The moment a character leaves the original environment and acts as a symbol or trademark it loses it's copyright but wins the protection of trademark laws.

If a person has trademark rights they are allowed to sue anybody who will violate those rights. If someone modifies their work and claims to be original, or sells their work without approval, they will be punished for illegal intellectual property use. The importance of trademark is not only economical, but it also helps culture and ensures that people are aware of the products they buy.

Article Source: http://free-article-depot.com

Your Trademark Law explains everything you need to know about trademarks, copyrights, and patents. It is your personal reference to protecting your business.

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