Typical wares in this category include supplements such as Vitamin D, Multi-vitamins, ginseng extracts, formulations to promote special functions, etc.

Health Canada Product Licence

• In order to sell “natural health” products in Canada you must comply with the Food and Drugs Act. For more information see the Health Canada guide.
• This usually means getting a product licence from Health Canada
• Health Canada has a certain way it likes to have products described. CIPO has a different way. You can’t generally use the Health Canada description for the trademark.

Choosing a Good Trademark

• The strongest mark is a made-up word such as Xerox® or Kodak®. The next best is a name that’s a real word, but has nothing to do with the goods or services, such as Apple® for computers or Blackberry® for personal computing devices.
• Choose a mark that is evocative and distinctive, without being descriptive.
• Packaging for these products often includes designs, which may involve a second trademark registration.

Choosing a Bad Trademark

• Make it clearly descriptive: For example, let’s assume that you wanted to trademark a new line of garlic extract and call it GARLIC EXTRACT. It would likely be refused as being clearly descriptive.
• Make it confusingly similar to another trademark, so as to either improve your business or devalue another business: This makes for a bad trademark and possible law suits.

Search Before You Commit to the Brand / Trademark

The best time to check for trademarks and other potential problems is after the design phase but before the production stage. Otherwise, you could end up with legal problems and wasted time and money on a brand you have to abandon.