Subject: {FIRSTNAME},Creating A Trademark That Works Hello {FIRSTNAME}, Last time we learned about making your trademark unique. This time we will learn about creating a trademark that works. Part 4 -------------------------------------------------- Although we have talked a lot about the process of registering your trademark, you first have to develop one to do that. It sounds easy. Just use your company name and that’s that. The problem with this is that your company name may not be the best choice for you to trademark. If you are a company named “Smith” for example, there could be hundreds of other companies out there with the same name. Even more so, the term “smith” doesn’t really tell the consumer anything about your product or service which means it doesn’t create nearly the buzz that it needs to in order to be successful for you. When you are choosing your trademark then, you need to consider both the ability of the trademark to be protected, as we have discussed, as well as the likelihood for you to be successful in a marketing campaign for that trademarked term. You need a unique trademark that is easy to market for your cause. It’s not easy feat. In fact there are many different things that should go into this process that have to be considered from the beginning by you, the potential owner of the trademark. Here, we’ll talk about several of the important considerations you have to think about when it comes to selecting the right trademark for your needs. Your brand name may seem like the perfect type of product to trademark. After all, it is your name. But, that’s not always something that can work. One reason for this is the fact that the United States Patent And Trade Office has some pretty strict rules on what can and can not be trademarked in the first place. In their term, “a spectrum of distinctiveness” must be used. They use a scale of how easy it is to protect the brand name using a trademark. The more unique the term and the more distinct it is, the more likely it is to be protected. Not all brand names can fall under this category, though. The more unique and distinctive, the more likely it is to be protected. Therefore, consider a trademark that is fanciful, suggestive, and creative. But, don’t consider a trademark that is a description or a generic term. A term that the USPTO uses to describe the most able to be protected types of trademarks are those of arbitrary. It is, like that of fanciful, one of the best types of trademarks to consider using. An arbitrary trademark is one that has a term in the English language that is used to trademark or brand a product that has nothing to do with its actual English meaning. There is no relationship between what the word actually means and what the term is being used to brand. For example, you may right now be using one of those types of trademarked products. The Apple Computer is the ideal example. Although the term “apple” is used to trademark the computer company in a very distinctive way, the term itself “apple” refers to a fruit, not a computer. Therefore, since a computer and an apple have little in common with each other, this is an ideal match for a trademark in the way of protection abilities. One the other hand, though, if you were to be growing apples on a farm, a trademark of “apple” just would not work here. Because there is no connection between the name of the trademark being used and the actual product, it is easy to protect this type of trademark. Therefore, arbitrary marks are some of the best to use from a trademark standpoint. As for how you will market them, that’s a different story altogether! For more information about Trademarking, please refer to my website Take Care,