Trademark glossary

A

Abandonment

An application is abandoned when the applicant misses a USPTO deadline or withdraws it; a registered mark is abandoned when its owner stops using it with no intent to resume. An abandoned application can sometimes be revived within two months of the notice, for a fee. An abandoned mark loses its priority. See also: Dead mark, Office action.

Arbitrary mark

A real word used for goods or services it has nothing to do with, such as Hazel & Rye for a bookkeeping service. Strong and registrable, because the word tells customers only who the product comes from. See also: Fanciful mark, Suggestive mark. Guide: How to name a brand you can trademark.

B

BIMI

Brand Indicators for Message Identification, a standard that shows a sender's logo beside its emails in supporting inboxes. The Verified Mark Certificate behind it generally requires a registered trademark for the exact logo. See also: VMC, Design mark. Guide: BIMI and your registered logo: putting your brand in the inbox.

C

Cease and desist letter

A letter from a trademark owner demanding that someone stop using a confusingly similar mark. It is the usual first step before a lawsuit, and a federal registration makes it far more persuasive. See also: Likelihood of confusion.

Common-law rights

Trademark rights that come from actually using a mark in commerce, without any registration. They are real but limited to the area where the mark is used, which is why a search should look beyond USPTO records. See also: Use in commerce, Priority date.

D

Dead mark

A USPTO record for an application or registration that is no longer live: abandoned, cancelled or expired. A dead mark is usually not a bar to a new application, but the business behind it may still be using the name. See also: Live mark, Abandonment.

Descriptive mark

A name that directly describes a feature, quality or purpose of the goods, such as Warm Winter Jackets. Refused on the Principal Register until it acquires distinctiveness through years of exclusive use; it may register on the Supplemental Register in the meantime. See also: Generic term, Suggestive mark, Supplemental Register. Guide: How to name a brand you can trademark.

Design mark

A mark shown as an image rather than plain letters: a logo, stylized lettering, or a symbol on its own. The USPTO calls the image a special form drawing, and the registration protects the appearance as filed. See also: Word mark, Standard characters, Drawing. Guide: Word mark vs logo vs icon mark.

Dilution

Harm to a famous mark from a use that blurs its distinctiveness or tarnishes it, even without any confusion and even in an unrelated market. Only famous marks can claim it.

Disclaimer

A statement in an application that you claim no exclusive right to a particular word or element apart from the mark as a whole. The USPTO requires one for descriptive or generic parts of a mark. See also: Descriptive mark.

Drawing

The image of the mark in an application: either standard characters (the words in plain type) or a special form drawing (a clean image of the design). It must show the mark alone, without a product, background or tagline. See also: Standard characters, Specimen.

E

Examining attorney

The USPTO attorney assigned to review an application for conflicts with earlier marks, descriptiveness and formal requirements. The examining attorney works for the USPTO and cannot advise applicants. See also: Office action.

F

Fanciful mark

An invented word with no prior meaning, such as Acmeflow. The strongest kind of mark: nothing to confuse it with and nothing it describes. See also: Arbitrary mark. Guide: How to name a brand you can trademark.

Filing basis

The legal ground for an application: use in commerce (Section 1(a)) when you are already selling under the mark, or intent to use (Section 1(b)) when you have a bona fide plan to. Foreign applications and registrations provide two further bases. See also: Use in commerce, Intent to use. Guide: Intent to use vs use in commerce: choosing your filing basis.

First use date

The date you first used the mark on the goods or for the services anywhere, and the date you first used it in commerce that the U.S. Congress can regulate, usually across state lines. Both go in a use-based application and can matter in a dispute over who came first. See also: Use in commerce, Priority date.

G

Generic term

The common name for the product or service itself, such as coffee for coffee. It can never be a trademark, for anyone, however long it is used. See also: Descriptive mark. Guide: How to name a brand you can trademark.

Goods and services

What you use the mark for. Goods are things you make or sell (classes 1 to 34); services are things you do for others (classes 35 to 45). An application lists them specifically, and protection extends to the list and to anything related. See also: Nice class. Guide: Trademark classes explained.

I

Incontestability

A status a registration can reach after five years of continuous use, by filing a Section 15 declaration. It removes several grounds on which the registration could otherwise be challenged, including descriptiveness. See also: Section 15 declaration.

Intent to use

A filing basis (Section 1(b)) for a mark you are not yet using but have a bona fide intent to use. It reserves your priority date now; registration waits until you file a Statement of Use. See also: Statement of Use, Use in commerce, Filing basis. Guide: Intent to use vs use in commerce: choosing your filing basis.

L

Likelihood of confusion

The main test for whether two marks conflict: would ordinary customers be likely to think the goods or services come from the same source? It weighs how the marks sound, look and mean and how related the goods are. The USPTO refuses applications on this ground under Section 2(d). See also: Office action, Examining attorney.

Live mark

A USPTO record for a pending application or an active registration. Live records are the ones that can block a new application. See also: Dead mark.

M

Madrid Protocol

An international treaty that lets a U.S. applicant or registrant extend protection to many other countries through one filing made with the USPTO. Each country still examines the mark under its own law.

N

Nice class

One of the 45 categories of goods and services in the Nice Classification, the international system the USPTO uses. Classes 1 to 34 are goods and 35 to 45 are services; USPTO fees are charged per class. See also: Goods and services. Guide: Trademark classes explained.

Notice of allowance

The USPTO's letter saying an intent-to-use application has cleared examination and publication and will register once you show the mark in use. From its date you have six months to file a Statement of Use, extendable in six-month steps up to three years. See also: Intent to use, Statement of Use, Publication. Guide: Intent to use vs use in commerce: choosing your filing basis.

O

Office action

A letter from the examining attorney explaining a problem with an application, from a request to reword the goods to a refusal based on a similar earlier mark. You have three months to respond, or six with a paid extension. See also: Examining attorney, Likelihood of confusion. Guide: Trademark office actions: what they are and how to respond.

Opposition

A proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in which someone who believes a published mark would harm them asks that it not be registered. It must be filed, or an extension requested, within the 30-day publication period. See also: Publication, TTAB.

P

Principal Register

The USPTO's main register, for distinctive marks. Registration on it brings a legal presumption of ownership and validity, nationwide rights, the ® symbol and the path to incontestability. See also: Supplemental Register, Incontestability.

Priority date

The date from which your claim to a mark is measured. For a federal application it is the filing date, which is why filing before launch matters; common-law users measure from first use. See also: First use date, Intent to use.

Publication

After the examining attorney approves an application, the mark is published in the USPTO's Official Gazette for 30 days so that others can oppose it. If nobody does, the application moves to registration or, for intent-to-use applications, to a notice of allowance. See also: Opposition. Guide: How long does a trademark take?.

R

Registration number

The number the USPTO assigns when a mark registers, distinct from the serial number of the application. It appears on the certificate and in every later maintenance filing. See also: Serial number.

S

Section 15 declaration

An optional sworn statement that a mark has been in continuous use for five years since registration. Filing it makes the registration incontestable. See also: Incontestability.

Section 8 declaration

A sworn statement, with a specimen, that a registered mark is still in use, filed between the fifth and sixth year after registration and again with every ten-year renewal. Miss it and its grace period and the registration is cancelled. See also: Section 9 renewal, Specimen. Guide: Trademark maintenance and renewal: keeping your registration alive.

Section 9 renewal

The application to renew a registration for another ten years, filed in the year before each ten-year anniversary together with a Section 8 declaration. A registration can be renewed indefinitely while the mark stays in use. See also: Section 8 declaration. Guide: Trademark maintenance and renewal: keeping your registration alive.

Serial number

The number the USPTO assigns to an application when it is filed. It identifies the application until registration, when a registration number is added. See also: Registration number.

Service mark

A trademark for services rather than goods: the name of a cafe, a consultancy or a software service. The law and the process are the same; the SM symbol is the unregistered counterpart of TM. See also: Trademark, TM, SM and ®.

Specimen

Proof that the mark is in real use as filed: a label, tag or package for goods, or a web page, advertisement or sign for services. Required for use-based applications, Statements of Use and every maintenance filing; a mock-up does not count. See also: Use in commerce, Statement of Use. Guide: Trademark specimens: what the USPTO accepts and what it refuses.

Standard characters

A drawing of the mark typed in plain letters with no claim to any font, size, color or design. It protects the words themselves in every styling, and is what most people mean by a word mark. See also: Word mark, Drawing. Guide: Word mark vs logo vs icon mark.

Statement of Use

The filing that turns an intent-to-use application into a registration: a sworn statement that the mark is now in use, with a specimen and a USPTO fee per class. Due within six months of the notice of allowance, extendable in six-month steps up to 36 months. See also: Intent to use, Specimen.

Suggestive mark

A name that hints at the goods but needs a little imagination to connect, such as Loopwell for habit-tracking software. Registrable without proof of acquired distinctiveness, and the middle ground many brands choose. See also: Descriptive mark, Arbitrary mark. Guide: How to name a brand you can trademark.

Supplemental Register

The USPTO's second register, for marks that can distinguish goods but are not yet distinctive, such as descriptive terms and surnames. It allows the ® symbol and blocks later confusingly similar applications, but carries fewer legal presumptions than the Principal Register. See also: Principal Register, Descriptive mark.

T

TEAS

The Trademark Electronic Application System, the USPTO's online filing system. Electronic filing is the standard route; paper filing costs far more.

TM, SM and ®

TM (goods) and SM (services) mark an unregistered claim of rights and may be used by anyone at any time. ® may be used only after the USPTO has registered the mark; using it earlier is unlawful and can hurt an application. See also: Service mark, Principal Register.

Trademark

A word, name, symbol, design or combination that identifies the source of goods and distinguishes them from others. In everyday use the word covers service marks too. Rights come from use; federal registration strengthens them and extends them nationwide. See also: Service mark, Common-law rights.

TTAB

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the USPTO tribunal that hears oppositions, cancellation proceedings and appeals from an examining attorney's final refusal. See also: Opposition.

U

Use in commerce

Actual use of the mark in the ordinary course of trade, in commerce that the U.S. Congress can regulate: goods sold or shipped with the mark on them or their packaging, services rendered and advertised under it. The basis for a Section 1(a) application and the thing a specimen proves. See also: Specimen, Intent to use, Filing basis. Guide: Intent to use vs use in commerce: choosing your filing basis.

V

VMC

A Verified Mark Certificate, the digital certificate that proves you own the logo shown through BIMI. Issuers generally require a registered trademark for the exact logo image. See also: BIMI. Guide: BIMI and your registered logo: putting your brand in the inbox.

W

Word mark

A mark consisting of words, letters or numbers, usually filed in standard characters so that it is protected in every font and color. The most flexible registration a brand can hold, and typically the one to file first. See also: Standard characters, Design mark. Guide: Word mark vs logo vs icon mark.

Contact

Trademarky, LLC, 78 SW 7th St, 5th FL, Miami, FL 33130. (305) 562-6800, hello@trademarky.io. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm ET. Available by appointment.

This free check is an AI-assisted preliminary screening against known U.S. trademark records. It is not a comprehensive clearance search and not legal advice. Only a licensed attorney can advise you on whether to file.