Service Marks vs Trademarks – What You Need to Know for Your Startup

Service marks are a counterpart of trademarks, and the two are often used interchangeably. This blog post summarizes what you need to know about service marks. What is a service mark? In contrast to a trademark, a service mark brands, identifies and distinguishes a service, whereas a trademark achieves the exact same function, except for … Read More

Trade Names, Company Names & Trademarks – Sorting Through the Confusion

A common source of confusion is whether the name of one’s company is a trademark. The short answer is that it can be. The rest of this blog will explain the answer more fully. But, before we can proceed, let’s define some terminology: Trade Name –  “Any name used by a person to identify his or … Read More