Branding: Search before you use

Branding: Search before you name.

All products and services are not created equal. Some products and services aspire to be brands that distinguish themselves in the market place. Brands that are trademarks and service marks can give their owners the right to prevent others from using such brands to peddle their goods in addition to attracting more customers. The owner gets this right as they use the mark. Once registered, it turns into a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the brand strategy.

For little money, you can set a strategy in motion to create a distinctive brand for your new product or service. There are many steps in a branding campaign but one of them might be creating a good trademark or service mark. As you know, a trademark and service mark are protectable words, logos, slogans that distinguish your good (trademark) or service (servicemark) from others in the market. One of the simplest steps in creating a brand is to determine whether it is descriptive of the goods or services. Does your proposed mark describe (one or more) ingredient, quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose or use of the specified goods or services? If yes, there may be a problem in obtaining a trademark or service mark. One more thing: do a quick search on the US Patent and Trademark site to see if there is a prior registrant to your mark: Search US Trademark office