The strength of your business lies in choosing a strong trademark that will not be generalized over a long period. A trademark can be anything, such as a name, logo, design, or a quote that uniquely identifies a brand. To avoid generalization, you should be careful about choosing a strong name (trademark) for your business. Let us learn more about generalization and how to avoid that in this blog.
How are Trademarks Genericized?
A trademark can become genericized when it is in use for a very long period and becomes most common among people. For example, “Escalator” was a trademark of a brand producing moving staircases. However, now the term is genericized and is used to refer to any moving staircase in common.
Once a trademark becomes genericized, then it can no longer be registered. So, it can be easily used by anyone, including the competitors to refer to their products. Additionally, the brand can no longer be uniquely advertised and customers may confuse it with other brands.
Categories of Trademark Names
While choosing a trademark for your brand, you should be careful about selecting the strongest trademark to avoid genericization. There are five common types of trademark names. They are listed below:
- Fanciful Trademark Names: One of the strongest trademark types since they can refer only to specific products. For example, Pepsi, Sprite, and Nike.
- Arbitrary Trademark Names: Arbitrary Trademarks are names with real meaning but have no connection with respect to the product. For example, the word “Whirlpool” is a word that has a meaning, but it refers to a brand that produces home appliances. Likewise, “Apple” is a word that refers to a fruit, but is used as a trademark for a brand that produces computers, mobile phones, and tablets.
- Suggestive Trademark names: Suggestive Trademark Names seem relatable to the products but don’t describe them directly. For example, Netflix, as “flicks” refers to movies, and Airbus, as the name is relatable to airplanes.
- Descriptive Trademark Names: These Trademarks directly refer to or describe the products that are produced by the brand. For example, KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken).
- Generic Trademarks: One of the weakest trademark types is this Generic marks. They refer to the products in common and cannot be registered as a trademark for your brand.
It is always recommended to use Fanciful, Arbitrary, or Suggestive marks while registering a trademark for your brand, as they are stronger than the others.
Are you facing problems in choosing strong and distinctive trademarks to avoid generalization? Don’t worry! Brealant is here for your help.
To make your trademarks more unique than others, make sure to follow the above suggestions. Also, avoid using surnames, acronyms, and numbers as your trademarks as they may confuse or be difficult to remember. If you want to protect your brand by registering a strong trademark, contact Brealant today. Brealant helps you with the registration processes of trademarks, patents, and copyrights and solves all your queries instantly! Contact Brealant now and protect the value of your intellectual property from infringers.