It is important to continually use your trademarks properly. Improper use can lead to loss of trademark protection.
The first and easiest step in proper use is to always use the correct identifying symbol after your trademark. If the trademark is not yet registered, use the ™ symbol to put the public on notice of your trademark. The ™ symbol can be used at any time, even if you have no intention of ever applying for a federal trademark registration. It should also be used after you apply for federal registration up through the time of actual registration. Once the trademark has been granted federal registration, you should begin to use the ® symbol. The ® indicates that the trademark is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The second step is trickier, but is just as, if not more, important. A trademark must only be used as a proper adjective to identify the particular brand of product or service that your company is selling. It should never be used as a descriptive adjective, a noun, or a verb, or used in the possessive or plural. Examples of the proper use of a trademark are: “Protect your cuts with Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandages” and “Xerox® copiers produce great color copies”. In both these cases, the trademark brand name is used as a proper adjective and with the ® symbol. Examples of improper uses of trademarks are: “Protect your cuts with Band-Aids” (here it is being used as a noun and in the plural form, both big no-no’s); “Xerox this document” (verb); “Xerox copies are the best” (descriptive adjective); “Xerox’s high quality” (possessive noun). All the aforementioned uses are improper and put the trademark at risk of losing its protection. You should have your company’s advertising and packaging reviewed for proper trademark use and marking. You should also monitor third party uses of your trademark to ensure that others use your mark properly. Many companies have Trademark Use Guidelines posted on their websites that provide instruction to third parties as to permissible uses of the company’s trademarks.
Ironically, the more successful and widely-known a trademark becomes, the more at risk it is of becoming “generic” and losing its protective registration. Many product words that we commonly use were once trademarks. These include aspirin, cellophane, corn flakes, escalator, granola, jungle gym, linoleum, raisin bran, shredded wheat, tabloid, thermos, touch-tone, trampoline, yo-yo, and zipper. All of these terms were once protected trademarks that could only be used by the companies that owned them. The owners of each of these trademarks lost their protection due to wide-spread use of the trademarks to identify the product rather than the brand. Once the Patent and Trademark Office determines that a trademark has become generic, the trademark loses its protection and can thereafter be used by anyone to describe the type of product associated with the brand name. If your brand name becomes generic through improper use, a competitor can petition the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel your registration, and your brand name could suffer the same fate.
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whoo hooo — once again, I remember this stuff!!! Either I have a really good memory, or had a really good teacher….. ah well… I find this concept really interesting, because of the list of “generics” that did not start out that way.