Trademarks are words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that allow customers to easily identify and authenticate the source of a service or product. They are also important since they are the face of the company and have the potential to be renewed indefinitely.
Trademarks are broken into a spectrum of distinctiveness as follows:
| Name | Strength | |
| Fanciful | Xerox | Very strong |
| Arbitrary | Apple (Computers) | Very strong |
| Suggestive | Liquid Glass (Car Polish) | Strong |
| Descriptive | Green Plant Food | Weak |
| Generic | Cars | No Protection |
A fanciful mark is a term that has no meaning except as the trademark. Although the word Xerox is well known now, before being used as a copier name, it did not exist.
An arbitrary mark is a common word, but it is used with an unrelated product or service. For example, the company name Apple could not be used to sell edible apples because it would be generic, but when used to sell computers it is arbitrary.
A suggestive mark suggests or implies what the product is, but does not immediately identify the product. Liquid Glass as a car polish suggests it will give the car a finish like glass, but the product is not actually made from liquified glass.
A descriptive mark simply describes the product. If the product is green, and it is a plant food, calling it Green Plant Food is simply descriptive. Descriptive marks can be trademarked, but only if the mark gains secondary meaning - that is when the public hears the name, they recognize the mark as relating to the source.
A generic mark is the name of a product, and cannot be trademarked. A car company cannot call itself Cars and get protection, as it is the name of the product and other companies need to be able to use the term.
The best method of preventing your trademark from taking on generic status is to use a descriptive term in conjunction with your trademark. This prevents your mark from becoming the descriptive term. An example is Bilco. This was a registered trademark until the consumer started referring to all angled exterior basement doors as Bilco doors. The proper way to protect a mark is to use it as follows: Bilco basement doors, Aspirin brand of pain reliever, Xerox photocopier.
A trademark must be applied to the product and used properly in literature to establish and maintain protection. A service mark would be used in advertising literature, product brochures or the like in combination with the offering of the services or the rendering of the services.