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Thursday 1 November 2018

Trademark

A trademark is any name or distinctive device that helps people to identify the products made by a particular business. It can be a design, logo, name, phrase, picture, symbol or word and can only be used on things made by the business that owns the trademark.

Examples of trademarks are Coca-Cola and Coke, which are names for a certain drink made by the Coca-Cola Company and the "swoosh" symbol used by the Nike company on their products. 

Nike swoosh logo

Thirteenth century English bakers were ordered to mark each loaf of bread so that if a faulty one turned up, "it will be knowne in whom the faulte lies." These bakers' marks were one of the first trademarks.

The first U.S. trademark was given in 1870. The recipient was the Averill Chemical Paint Company of New York City

The Bass brewery was founded by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, England in 1777. In the 19th century the company developed a thriving export trade with its India Pale Ale. The Bass red triangle was the first trademark to be registered in the UK under the Trade Mark Registration Act 1875, which came into effect on January 1, 1876.

Bass red triangle logo

Michael Buffer, the "Let's get ready to rumble" guy, had the phrase trademarked and as of 2009 it had generated $400 million in revenue.

In 1998, NestlĂ© trademarked the tubular packaging of Smarties. It later sued Masterfoods Denmark which marketed M&Ms in a similar package. The Danish Supreme Court ruled that a basic geometrical shape couldn't be trademarked, and ordered the trademark to be removed.

A business man Moti Shniberg, tried to trademark the term "September 11, 2001."on that very day, as the Twin Towers and Pentagon were still smoldering.

When graffiti artist Banksy sought to trademark his image of a protester throwing flowers in 2020, the trademark office denied it on the grounds of him having no interest in selling his work. In the ruling they used a quote from one of Banksy's books: "copyright is for losers."


The British supermarket chain Iceland has an EU-wide trademark on their name, and take legal action against Icelandic companies that use it. The Icelandic government has applied to have their trademark invalidated, so far without success.

In-N-Out burgers operates occasional pop-up restaurants in Australia for the sole purpose of protecting their trademark there.

Dove soap and Dove chocolate are owned by different companies. Because they're separated as different classes of goods and services, there is no trademark infringement. 

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