Trademark and Patent Law in the US - Assignment Example

The idea in essence to have a trademark that identifies the product with a given producer, merchant, or company. In most cases, descriptive words are not admissible as trademarks. A service mark is a unique word, mark, or symbol that identifies a service as opposed to a product.

Registration of trademarks in the US dates back to the Paris Registration of 1882. In the US, the law governing trademarks is the Lanham Act enacted in 1946. The law states in essence, that all states and the federal government have trademark registration laws. Registration of a trademark is not essential; however, in cases where a trademark is registered, it is easier to prove ownership of the mark. Common law protection lasts where without any requirement for renewal filing or notifications if a unique trademark establishes the product in the minds of the public ad the trademark is used continuously. The originating company loses its exclusive property rights to the trademark if either of the following occurs:

• The company permits competitors to refer to similar products by the unique trademark, or
• The trademark is used generic descriptive terms of a class of products or services from more than one source.

(a) Applications for registration, including amendments to allege use under section 1(c) of the Act, and statements of use under section 1(d) of the Act, will be examined and, if the applicant is found not entitled to registration for any reason, the applicant will be notified and advised of the reasons therefore and of any formal requirements or objections.

(b) It might be made mandatory by the examiner that the applicant would need to submit such information and proof that might be needed for the properly documented examination of the case being made by the applicant.

Consequently, trademark protects firms against the misappropriation of the goodwill that their trademarks represent. Protection of trademarks also, therefore, encourages firms to maintain and preferably enhance their goodwill. This provides firms with an incentive to compete and as a result, consumers get better products and services. There are in addition other policies, besides those of the likelihood of consumer confusion and outside the context of this case, those of dilution that governs trademark law in the United States. One reason for this is the fact that a finding of the likelihood of confusion is not an unassailable empirical truth. Courts invariably ascertain likely consumer responses to a defendant’s unauthorized use of a mark through the filter of a legal test that involves the application of a number of the likelihood of confusion factors. Often courts don’t get close to ascertaining the actual response of real consumers, due, often, to the quality of evidence. A second reason why trademark law and registrations are not just about factual analyses is because of the fact that the worldview of consumers is subject to manipulation.