How can a company lose a valuable trademark?
6 Possible Ways to Lose Your Trademark Rights
- Failure to Renew & Manage Portfolios. First, the most obvious culprit: not noticing when marks are up for renewal.
- Your Mark Loses Distinctiveness.
- Your Mark Becomes Generic.
- You Lose In Litigation.
- Five-Year Dependency Violations.
- Incorrect Use Violation.
When do you Lose Your trademark on a product?
When your product or service name is viewed as a generic type of product or technology, you may have lost your trademark rights. Other rules: Don’t allow others to use your mark as a verb, or to combine the mark with other elements to create a hybrid mark that includes your mark.
What makes a trademark distinctive in trademark law?
In order to serve as a trademark, a mark must be distinctive — that is, it must be capable of identifying the source of a particular good. In determining whether a mark is distinctive, the courts group marks into four categories, based on the relationship between the mark and the underlying product: (1)…
When to use the TM symbol in a trademark?
The TM symbol is used for common law marks that represent goods or services that are not federally registered with the USPTO, including marks whose registration is pending. The ™ symbol, and the word “trademark,” is interpreted as broadly covering both product marks and service marks.
Can a trademark be cancelled by the USPTO?
Since trademarks are issued to create and preserve distinctiveness, anything that dilutes the meaning of a mark can precede its cancellation. Businesses cannot be satisfied with the certificate from the USPTO. Without protective measures, a mark can lose meaning and face cancellation.
Are there any trademarks that have lost their protection?
The following partial list contains marks which were originally legally protected trademarks, but which have subsequently lost legal protection as trademarks due to abandonment, non-renewal or improper issuance (the generic term predated the registration). Some marks retain trademark protection in certain countries despite being generic in others.
When is a trade mark removed from the Register?
Under the Trade Marks Act 1995, trademarks can be removed from the register if they have not been used in the previous three years.
What does the death of a trademark mean?
The death of a trademark. It may sound dramatic and for a trademark owner, it is. It means that the trademark owner’s once strong and powerful trademark is now available for everyone to use.
What happens to a trademark when it becomes generic?
Unfortunately for the trademark owner, once a trademark becomes generic it loses its trademark protection and it becomes available to the public.