Trademarks offer legal protection for certain words, logos, graphics and other symbols used by firms for running their business. They offer the trademark owners with the rights to bring legal proceedings against the violators or imitators of their mark and at the same time avert the customers from falling into the trap of fake items available in the market.

The two major causes of action brought under the trademarks framework are dilution of the trademark of a known firm and chance of misunderstanding by the customers.

A trademark can get diluted by the unlawful actions of unscrupulous individuals or companies, which can reduce the stature of the company by harming the image of the trademarked item with respect to a particular aspect or in an overall manner. For example, if the trademark of a shoe polish manufacturer is identical or even similar to that of a well known food manufacturer, consumers might think that the firm is diverting from its specialty, which might affect its quality of products.

As far as the possibility of misunderstanding is concerned, it is based on the striking similarity of the two marks, making it tough for the consumers to differentiate between the products. The misunderstanding could be about anything ranging from the nature of the product to its exact source. The underlying assumption behind such an infringement is that an average customer cannot be expected to remember the exact details of all the items in the marketplace. In such a scenario, the real trademark owner is at a danger of significant financial and reputation loss on account of an infringement by another firm.

However, there are many other claims that are possible with respect to trademark infringement. One such allegation is where an action is taken because another company is projecting its goods as if they were created by the trademark owner. In the same way, claims can also be brought due to unfair market practices.

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Trademark is an intellectual property right that safeguards certain symbols, words etc of a firm from being misused by others. The main objective of trademarks is to make sure that the consumers are not subjected to any confusion in relation to the origin of the product.

A trademark must be unique and distinct enough for the customers to identify it easily even amongst a crowd of similar products in the market. This distinctiveness of trademarks is recognized by dividing them into four essential categories – descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary or fanciful, and generic.

A descriptive mark is representative of the essential quality or some other features of the product like its utility or size. Although a few descriptive marks that have acquired a secondary meaning in the marketplace, which the consumers can identify as originating from a particular source, can be trademarked, this is not the usual case as descriptive marks are rarely exclusive.

Suggestive marks are pointers towards a particular product aspect or quality. However, customers might need to stretch their imagination to identify the real link between the product and the mark as there is no evident connection between the two. For example, ‘Hush Puppies’ is a famous brand name that markets shoes that guarantee comfort and prevent soreness of your feet. The prime reason behind such a name is that ‘barking dogs’ is slang for sore feet in some places in America.

Arbitrary marks are those marks that do not have any link whatsoever with the commodity itself. For example, the use of trademark ‘Apple’ with a logo of a half bitten apple is not at all related to the computers sold under the mark. Similarly, arbitrary marks are those that come from the creative imagination of the manufacturer or come from classical languages like Latin and Greek.

Finally, the category of generic marks clearly identifies the goods, like ‘sports wear’, and they cannot be given any trademark protection due to lack of distinctiveness.

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