Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters, and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing, and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to create authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, it only seemed right to introduce one of the many upcoming series where we remain persistent in introducing a variety of topics, which will look to not only educate but also deliver in a sense that only Miletti Law® can. As the title suggests, we have focused on “Trademarks” in this blog. By way of backdrop, this is more of an update and content refill since we have already dealt with the basics of trademarks in past blogs and videos. For instance, in one of the many training videos accessible through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k9XZST_PVA, Mr. Vinny Esq. has done a fantastic job disentangling and explaining the difference between Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights! The use of the “Apple®” brand as an example is excellent. Elsewhere, in our blog accessible through https://milettilaw.com/blog/f/intellectual-property-rights-part-1, we provided you with details on patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks in our discussion on “Types of Intellectual Property.” We used brands such as Coca-Cola®, McDonald’s®, and Nike® to explore and explain the concept of trademarks. This includes our own Miletti Law®. In another blog accessible through https://milettilaw.com/blog/f/the-miletti-law%C2%AE-quick-guide-to-intellectual-property-part-3, we hammered on several defining aspects of trademarks, including “ownership,” “requirements,” eligible subject matter,” “misappropriation/infringement,” “remedies,” and “key limitations.” Finally, in our video and blog titled “Quick Guide To Filing For Trademarks – 1(B)” and accessible through https://milettilaw.com/blog/f/quick-guide-to-filing-for-trademarks—1b, we provided you a hands-on guide to filing for trademarks. We invite you to hit these links for firsthand information on this interesting topic.

In light of the blogs published and videos posted related to trademarks, it might seem as if we have exhausted everything on this topic. No! As a matter of fact, this was just a nip at the tip of the iceberg. Accordingly, in an attempt to provide an update, refill our content, and fill in any blanks, we have introduced a miniseries on the “Fundamentals of Trademarks,” where a number of upcoming blogs will be dedicated to hammering on and exploring trademarks in depth and details. This being Part I, we will start with a basic introduction in our blog titled “Trademarks 101 – A Primer Course.”

Trademark – A definition

In line with the information we provided in part blogs and videos, a trademark, which is considered eligible for protection under the law, is typically a design, symbol, phrase, image, and/or word used as a source identifier for a given product. In fact, a trademark can be a combination of any or all of these things. For instance, a perfect example of a registered trademark that combines a word and a design is that of the Nike® logo. However, we also added that it is crucial to note that most trademarks are registered as standard character-only trademarks. Notably, we also have what is known as “Service Marks,” which, while used as source identifiers for given services, are similar to trademarks. In fact, the term “trademarks” or “marks” is simply used to stand for both service marks and trademarks. Additionally, other things such as product packaging, also called “trade-dress” (Coca-Cola’s contoured/fluted bottle), characters (Mickey Mouse), sounds (NBC’s chimes), colors (the robin’s egg blue of a Tiffany’s box), and slogans (Nike’s JUST DO IT). Note that each of these may be eligible for protection as a trademark.

In one of our blogs, we mentioned that because of “right” and “ownership” issues, the law requires that every single detail of the intellectual property, such as a trademark, be defined and described precisely. Additionally, something must be used to designate the service or good’s source for it to be considered a trademark. This goes without saying that something merely generic, functional, or ornamental may be disqualified and not considered eligible for protection.

Ideally, trademarks are protected under the law in the U.S., whose aim is to protect a brand or trademark owner’s reputation and goodwill, assist consumers in differentiating some brands from others, identify specific brands they may be interested in, and protect against consumer confusion in the marketplace. Technically, when a third party is prohibited from using an entity’s trademark or another seemingly confusing, consumers enjoy the assurance that any services or products they provide under a particular mark will be similar to the same as the ones they have purchased bearing a similar mark in the past.

In Part II of this miniseries and update on trademarks, we shall move the discussion forward by hammering on “Trademark Protection Requirements.”

Stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and education. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.