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Patents vs Trademarking

Never try to protect an innovation by trademarking when a patent is possible.

• patents protect new and useful inventions, from gadgets to pharmaceuticals to software to ...

• trademarks protect brand names, logos and other source designators

• patents prevent competitors from making, selling or using anything which is or includes the patented innovation

• trademarks prevent competitors from using confusingly similar trademarks

• trademarks do not, in any fashion, prevent competitors from making, selling and using the innovation

• trademarks provide exclusivity to the use of the trademark

• patents provide exclusivity to the use/sale of the innovation

If you try shielding an innovation with a trademark rather than a patent, you are betting against yourself.  If the innovation has any success in the marketplace, the success will be lost to competitors.  The initial success gives competitors a free market survey.

I came across the following misleading statement, prominently placed, on a very popular and successful website:

"You can also use the mark to maintain yourself as the exclusive source of a product or service."

Wrong, wrong, wrong, or at minimum very misleading.  It would be correct if it said:

"You can also use the mark to maintain yourself as the exclusive source of a product brand or service brand, although the same product or service can be sold by competitors under different brand names (trademarks)."

Again, trademark exclusivity runs to the brand name, not the product.  Patent exclusivity runs to the product, and not the brand name.

Example - McDonald's has acquired an immense degree of exclusivity in its McDonald's trademark, but none whatsoever in hamburger.  You can make and sell hamburgers as similar in appearance and taste as you choose, but you cannot call them McDonald's.

The only IP area that provides product/service exclusivity is patents, and that exclusivity is gained only if your invention (it must be yours, not something you have seen) meets the rigorous novelty and nonobviousness requirements.

More comparisons:

• patents limited to innovations that meet the rigorous new and nonobvious standands

• trademark requirements do not approach patent requirements, either as to type or severity

• patent exclusivity lasts only for a set period of years, and cannot be renewed

• trademarks can be renewed and renewed, as long as the mark is kept in use, and therefore can approach being perpetual.

But again, trademarks are not a "cure" to the thresholds and limitations of the otherwise-awesome power of patents.  Trademarks provide no product exclusivity, merely brand name exclusivity.  Do not trademark when you should patent.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, in trademark law prevents competitors from duplicating an unpatented innovation.

other topics - patent applications, trademark registrations, about patents, about trademarks, patents vs trade secrets, trademark myths, patent it or not, patent ready, patent myths

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