Business and Tax Lawyer Blog

Does it seem curious that one brand name can be used on multiple products and services all at the same time? The reason is that federal law allows business owners to claim intellectual property rights in one or more of 45 different trademark and service mark categories. For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article chronicled the legal issues that Twitter is facing with regard to trademarking the term “tweet” due to the fact that two other Internet companies had trademarked the term first. The problem here is that Twitter and the two rival companies are involved in the same field and so there is a high risk of confusion. The article points out other companies who have trademarked different variations of “tweet”, such as a line of dolls called tweets, a record and video production company, a whipped marshmallow maker, a seller of bird remediation and pest control systems, among others. The difference is that these products really do not relate to the tech world and so the risk of confusion is much lower.

A business owner or prospective business owner should familiarize themselves with the 34 different trademark and 11 different service mark categories and determine which of them relate to their goods or services in order to gauge the likelihood of consumer confusion, keeping in mind that goods or services could potentially fall into more than one category. New applications that are too similar to existing marks in a given category or industry may be denied by the trademark examiners and, even if approved, an existing mark owner could challenge the designation in court, leading to a costly legal battle. The bottom line is that business owners should pick categories that will clearly block product competition that could be confusing to consumers and the public in general.