Trademarks

A trademark is a recognisable sign, symbol, name or logo that identifies a company's goods or services. It is how customers spot a brand and tell one company's products apart from another's. For example, a football club's crest on a shirt tells you the shirt is official, and a drink's distinctive bottle shape tells you who made it.

Registered and unregistered

The two symbols that appear next to brands show the difference:

Many people assume a trademark happens on its own as soon as a company designs a logo. It does not. Unlike copyright, a trademark is not automatic: to gain legal protection the company must apply for it and have it registered.

What registration involves

Registering a trademark takes time and costs money, because the application has to be checked to make sure the mark is not too close to one already registered. It lasts for a fixed period rather than forever, but the owner can renew it, so a well-used brand can stay protected for a very long time.

Why it matters to a business

A trademark protects brand identity: the name and look that customers trust. Once registered, the owner can take action to stop others using a confusingly similar mark, such as a rival snack company bringing out a bag with the same colours, lettering and shape. If a copy is close enough that shoppers might pick it up by mistake, the owner can demand it is changed or withdrawn, and can take legal action against the copier.

Counterfeiting is the illegal use of a trademark on similar goods, such as selling fake trainers carrying a well-known logo. Counterfeiting damages the brand owner, because customers who buy poor-quality fakes blame the real company, and it damages the customer, who pays for goods that are not what they seem.