What Is a Trademark?

A trademark is a mark that distinctly identifies your business brand, goods, and services. If your trademark is not distinctive, it is usually not registrable.

A mark is a word, symbol, or design used to distinguish goods or services of one company from others.

Canada still uses the hyphenated spelling for trade-mark for now. Pending amendments to the Trade-marks Act will change the spelling to “trademark.”

What is a trademark defined as?

“trade-mark” means

  • (a) a mark that is used by a person for the purpose of distinguishing or so as to distinguish goods or services manufactured, sold, leased, hired or performed by him from those manufactured, sold, leased, hired or performed by others,

  • (b) a certification mark,

  • (c) a distinguishing guise, or

  • (d) a proposed trade-mark;

    • R.S., 1985, c. T-13, s. 2;
    •  1993, c. 15, s. 57;
    •  1994, c. 47, s. 190;
    •  2014, c. 20, s. 369, c. 32, ss. 7, 53.

By David Michaels

David Michaels, J.D., B.Eng., CHRM is a trained attorney who holds certificates in Canadian Trademark Law (2012) and Canadian Patent Law (1996) from McGill University. He has worked in the area of trademark law in Canada since 1995 and in the USA since 1993. David is a legal blogger, brand consultant, an eCommerce entrepreneur, and an aeronautical engineer. http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davidtmichaels/ Warning & Disclaimer: The pages, articles and comments on trademarkpro.ca do not constitute legal advice, nor do they create any attorney-client relationship. The articles published express the author's notes of the current state of trademark law and should not be attributed as opinions of the author, his employer, clients or the sponsors of trademarkpro.ca. The author does not warrant that these notes are up-to-date. Trademark law is constantly changing and it varies between jurisdictions and even within jurisdictions. This website should not be relied upon.