Do you have a trademark? Or is it really a copyright? Or a patent?

A trademark indicates the source of your goods or services and is how customers recognize your goods or services in the marketplace. It provides legal protection for your brand. A trademark is very different from a patented invention or a copyrighted creative work.

Below details to find how these three types of intellectual property differ

Trademark – A trademark protects brand names, slogans, logos, and other source identifiers.

Copyright – A copyright protects original artistic works, like songs, movies, and books.

Patent – A patent protects new inventions, processes, and machines.

Trademark or brand

A brand is a marketing concept tied to how people feel about a product or service. Companies use different colors, images, and qualities to influence these emotions. For example, a certain brand might make you feel confident, calm, or secure. Another might make you feel eager or excited. A trademark, on the other hand, provides legal protection for a brand. It creates enforceable rights in a brand’s identity. Traditional types of trademarks include brand names, slogans, and logos:

Non-traditional trademarks include sounds, colors, and shapes. Almost anything can be a trademark, so long as it indicates the source of products or services. You don’t need a brand to have a trademark. You simply need to use a word, symbol, or design to indicate the source of your products or services and to distinguish them from the products or services of your competitors. That makes you a trademark owner.

Trademark, domain name, or trade name

In addition to owning a trademark, you might also have a domain name or a trade name or both. At first glance, the concepts seem similar, but they actually serve different functions. A trademark indicates the source of your goods or services. Examples of trademarks include:

A domain name is the internet address of your website. Some people refer to it as a “Uniform Resource Locator,” “URL,” or “web address.” Examples of domain names include payless.com, uhaul.com, and PNC.com

A trade name is the name of your business orgnisation. Some people refer to them as “business names,” “company names,” “doing business as names,” “DBA names,” or “fictitious names.” Examples of trade names include Payless Shoesource Worldwide Inc., U-Haul Limited, Inc., and The Financial Services Group, Inc.

Although a domain name or trade name can also be a trademark, it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how you use it.