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Trademarks & What to Do With Them



According to the International Trademark Association, and they should know, a "trademark is any word (Poison), name (Giorgio Armani), symbol (a logo), device (the Pillsbury Doughboy), slogan (Got Milk?), package design (Coca-Cola bottle) or combination of these, i.e. a mark that identifies and distinguishes a specific product from others in the market place, i.e. in trade. Even a sound (NBC chimes) or color combination can be a trademark under some circumstances. The term trademark is often used interchangeably to identify a trademark or service mark....A service mark (Harrods) is similar to a trademark, but it is used in the sale or advertising of services to identify and distinguish the services of one company from those of others."

The owner of a trademark must make a considerable effort to ensure proper use to assure continued protection. That's their problem. In general writing, however, just capitalizing such names is considered enough effort. You do not need to include the symbols (r) or TM.

In formal writing and some journalistic styles, a trademark is used as an adjective modifying a noun, never as a noun. However, as THE NEW YORK TIMES MANUAL OF STYLE AND USAGE puts it, trademarks "should be treated as modifiers *when idiom permits* (emphasis mine): She bought a Minolta camera but not He swigged a 7Up brand soft drink.

In journalistic or formal use you should not change the mark to the plural form. Instead, make the descriptive noun plural. (Oreo cookies. Not Oreos; DC-10 airplanes, not DC-10s) However, in fiction -- especially in dialogue -- the idiom permits such modification. Your tattooed, tough-guy biker character would say, "Mount them Harleys and ride!" not "Mount them Harley-Davidson motorcycles and ride!" (Harley is a trademark as well as Harley-Davidson.) Nor should you make a trademark possessive, unless it is in fiction or acceptable style for a particular publication. (Back to the biker: The Harley's chrome reflected the morning sun. Back to the NYTimesMoSaU: The Harley motorcycle's chrome was rusted and pitted.)

If a trademark is in possessive form, leave it as such. Our biker would drink Jack Daniel's rather than Jack Daniels. He's wear Levi's or Levi's jeans, not Levi jeans.

International Trademark Association(INTA) has an International Trademark Associationonline checklist of nearly 3,000 registered trademarks and service marks at. INTA also will provide information via email or by phone. The US Patent and Trademark Office maintains the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) database with 3 million (!) pending, registered and dead federal trademarks. It's more complicated to use and you might become transfixed by the mass of information. (Mattel Inc. has 170 trademarks involving "Barbie," although four or five dozen have been "abandoned" and are listed as "dead." In case you were wondering both Uptown Chic Barbie and Princess of Power Barbie are dead.)

But just to get you oriented, here are a few words that are still trademarks, although some mistakenly assume they are generic: Here are some words that once were trademarks, but are no longer:

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