When starting a new business and attempting to stand out from the crowd, it is important for business owners to consider how to go about building a strong brand. An essential part of creating good branding is developing a robust trademark. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of goods and/or services. Trademark law places marks into one of five (5) categories of relative increasing strength: generic, descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary and fanciful. Keeping these five (5) categories in mind when developing a brand can be the difference between obtaining a weak trademark that offers very little protection, and a strong trademark that allows the owner to readily enforce its/her/his trademark rights in the marketplace. As part of the process, a trademark lawyer can assist business owners in navigating through the nuances of trademark law in order to develop strong brands.
What defines each level of trademark strength?
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