A trademark is a mark that has been adopted to distinguish the source of a particular good and/or service from other sources in a similar line of business.
- Trademarks can consist of words and/or a design. Most trademarks are wordmarks, such as Kodak or Coke, design marks, such as Nike’s “swoosh,” or a combination, such as the stylized script for Coca Cola.
- As soon as you have begun to properly use a valid trademark, you have established it as a ‘common law’ trademark. These ‘common-law’ rights are relatively weak, as well as being both expensive and difficult to enforce.
- Registration of a trademark provides much stronger rights that provide protection across Canada.
- Registration of your corporate name, business name or domain name does not give you the right to use that name. Registration of a trademark is the best way of protecting a name used in business
- After registration, you should monitor the market and the trademarks registry to prevent others from infringing on your trademark
- Electronic registration of a trademark can be done at the Government of Canada CIPO website, but only by the applicant or a registered trademark agent.
- Because of the complexity of trademark law, most people use a registered trademark agent to search, apply for, register and monitor a registered trademark.
