A trademark is a familiar sign, design or expression which identifies products or services of a specific source. It can be defined also as anything which takes a distinctive form terms, words, signatures, letters, symbols, titles, tax stamps, pictures, inscriptions, advertisements or packs or any other mark or a combination thereof, used or is intended to be used, either in distinguishing goods, products or services whatever their origin is, or to show that goods or products are owned by the mark owner by virtue of their manufacture, selection or dealing in, or to indicate the performance of a service. A trademark is one of the utmost valuable assets that an individual can possess. A trademark is not just a logo or a name, and it’s worth is not limited to the mark as such. A trademark is utilized in order to differentiate the services and goods of one trader to another. A trademark authorizes a business to exploit the market in order to entice customers, who permits them to recognize the marked good and likewise, …show more content…
The Red Bull registered trademark reserves exclusive rights to the product’s idiosyncratic logo, name, symbol and design, which identify and distinguish it from other products. In this case, Red Bull argued that the competitor was misleading customers into believing that its product was a Red Bull product or was endorsed by Red Bull due to its similar name and packaging, and hence carried the benefits and qualities that Red Bull offers. Red Bull one of the leading Austrian energy drinks has won their trademark Infringement case against a local importer of a drink product named ‘Bullfighter’. Red Bulls is a UAE listed trademark. They also have registered and received rights on their sign, name and enterprise. Here the court has found that the second company is misusing the registered trademark of Red Bull. They are trying to make clienteles believes that their product is a branch of Red Bull
v. VIP Prods., LLC 666 F. Supp. 2d 974 (Mo., 2008) Anheuser-Busch makes a distinction between confusing and non-confusing parodies, the latter being protected as a parody. The important factors in the case were that the price point of the products was the same, they were directly competing goods and the survey showed that there was a level of confusion (30.3% were confused), in addition, consideration was placed on irreparable harm caused by the defendants use of the mark, the priority lay with the first to register the trademark, lastly the District Court considered public interest, i.e. whether the public was deceived. Similarly in Starbucks Corp v. Wolfe’s Borough Coffee Inc., 588 F3d 97 (2d Cir. 2007) the court distinguished Louis Vuitton S.A. v Haute Diggty Dog, LLC, 507 F.3d 252 (4th Cir. 2007) by holding that if (as in the Louis Vuitton case), the mark is used in non-competing goods, the defendant conveyed that it was not the source of the plaintiffs product and if the actual use of the mark does not impair the distinctiveness of the plaintiff’s mark there may be an argument in favor of the defendant, however, if the defendant’s humor is not conveyed to the public, and does not increase the public identification of the plaintiff’s mark with its mark it will fail to establish
In every given business, the name itself portrays different meanings. This serves as the reference point and sometimes the basis of customers on what to expect within the company. Since personality affects product image (Langmeyer & Shank, 1994), the presence of brand helps in the realization of this concept. Traditionally, brand is a symbolic manifestation of all the information connected with a company, product, or service (Nilson, 2003; Olin, 2003). A brand is typically composed of a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, colors, and icons (Gillooley & Varley, 2001; Laforet & Saunders, 1994)). It is believed that a brand puts an impression to the consumer on what to expect to the product or service being offered (Mere, 1995). In other application, brand may be referred as trademark, which is legally appropriate term. The brand is the most powerful weapon in the market (LePla & Parker, 1999). Brands possess personality in which people associate their experience. Oftentimes, they are related to the core values the company executes.
Trademark is a word, symbol or phrase used for identifying a particular manufactures or seller’s products and distinguish them from other products. The overall purpose of Trademark law is to prevent unfair trade competitions by protecting the use of words, symbols logo design, name ect..Why because these are the key distinguishing things of goods and services of a firm. These laws protecting consumers by preventing firms and companies from using trademarks substantially similar to those of others. The main purpose of these laws is to avoid confusions regarding the identity and quality of companies and preventing the companies from diluting the marks of other’s. In present day world particularly in commercial market,
In brief, Canada’s history with trademarks can be traced back to pre-confederation in 1860, whereby the legislative council and Assembly of Canada adopted An Act Respecting Trademarks. Thereafter, the Trade-marks Act which is still in use today was enacted in 1953. Since that time, however, only minor changes have occurred within this Act. For instance, in 2005, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) wanted to modernize the Trade-marks Act. This included, but was not limited to changes to the regulation of non-traditional trademarks. This very brief historical overview shows Canada’s reluctance to make radical changes to the area of trademark law. This in turn creates a disadvantage for potential trade mark owners in Canada, as the law is not as comprehensive to cover areas such as non-traditional signs. Markets are constantly changing and with the innovations in technology, companies need these new and innovative ways to distinguish themselves in new ways to stay current in the marketplace and attract customers. Therefore with Canada’s stagnation in making changes in the law to in recognition of globalization and technological innovations, it puts Canadian companies at a disadvantage. However, with the passing of Bill C-35 it can be argued that slowly but surely, Canada will be on par with other jurisdictions around the world. This will shown by analyzing the current trademark law in the EU and US.
Red Bull is an energy drink manufactured, distributed, and marketed by Red Bull GmbH, which is a company in Austria. The company was established in 1987 in Austria and hit the global markets in 1996. Red Bull is the most popular energy drink across the world selling an estimated 5.2billion cans in 2012 as reported by Symphony IRI. The company commands a 50% and 46% market share of energy drink industry in Canada and United States respectively. The brand is also marketed in Europe, Asia and has recently ventured the African market with the establishment of a distribution depot in South Africa. Further, the company generated approximately $400 million in sales in America and Canada alone in 2012.
Red Bull has becoming hugely successful and operates within the global soft drink marketplace. Within the soft drink industry its niche is the ‘energy drink’ market, of which Mateschitz was largely responsible for creating. Red Bull currently is the leading energy drink across the entire globe. It holds 70% of the market worldwide (Gschwandtner, 2004). Once the drink was passed by health ministries, Red Bull entered the Austrian market, soon thereafter then moved into Germany, United Kingdom and the USA by 1997.
A trademark can be an essential platform for strengthening a company’s goodwill. A trademark entails any symbol, word, or phrase that can be identified with firm’s products and services. These items might be qualified as trademarks when they gain a signifying meaning among the company’s customer base (Maggs and Schechter 4). Nonetheless, the misuse of this proprietary asset can result in lack of legal protection and confusion among customers since it might be difficult to deduce the origin and identity of a particular product. As such, some companies have resorted to unconventional means of protecting their trademarks. This paper will discuss the trademark problems facing the assigned case study of VELCRO with reference to relevant statutory
Companies use a collection of brand equities to represent their products in the market (Voolnes, 2012). Brand equity refers to the commercial value that is derived from the perception of consumers on any given brand name of particular products in the market as opposed to the product itself. Ataman (2003) notes that the effect to the consumer is in the brand name and not the product itself. Companies use logos, trademarks and a collection of other symbols to present this information to the customers. The use of these symbols is meant to try and capture the customer mindset so that they can be thinking about the company products at all times through the items they possess at home (Estes, Gibbert, Guest, & Mazursk, 2012). This can well be explained by use of the customer-based brand equity model that brings together the requirements for a publicly renowned brand in the market.
The beverage industry is highly competitive and presents many alternative products to satisfy a need from within. The principal areas of competition are in pricing, packaging, product innovation, the development of new products and flavours as well as promotional and marketing strategies. Companies can be grouped into two categories: global operations such as PepsiCo, Coca-Cola Company, Monster Beverage Corp. and Red Bull and regional operations such as Ro...
1.Red Bull differentiates itself in not only the soft drink industry by focusing on energy drinks solely, but also in the business industry, seeing how their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for improvement, and threats all seem to blur together . The fact that Red Bull is seen as a luxury and sports drink is a strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat within itself (Kansara, 2); being labeled as such sets Red Bull apart from their competitors, pushing them into one field and industry to prosper in and be associated with, leaving them opportunity to determine the way that industry will grow as they are the pioneers but also threatening their hopes for expansion. In a nutshell, in order for Red Bull to truly work towards their mission
The World Intellectual Property Organization, Intellectual property is the ‘products of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, any symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce’. Intellectual Properties such as Patents, designs, trademarks and copyrights are protected by laws. The US government offers different types of protection for these properties. The Lanham Act (15 U.S.C.A. Section 1051 et seq., also known as the Trademark Act of 1946, provides protection for trademarks. A trademark is defined as a name, word, symbol, or device or any combination thereof, adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify its goods and distinguish them from those manufactured and sold by others.
Trademark must be a mark which includes a device, brand, heading, label, ticket, name, signa-ture, word, letter, numeral, shape of goods, packaging or combination of colours or any combi-nation thereof.
People move away from their extended families, and traditions can fade, which is why it is important to have a trademark that easily identifies your ...
“…Those bearing a trademark that is identical to, or indistinguishable from, a trademark registered to another party and infringe the rights of the holder of the trademark.” (Bian and Moutinho, 2011).
One of the most important aspects of any business is its name. Our laws provide for a business to seek protection for its property. Congress established the trademark protections for businesses in the Trademark Act of 1881. It established a trademark law that applied to the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution (Busse, 2011). The trademark is considered one of the founding distinctions a company can own under our intellectual property laws. For consideration in this essay, we will discuss a very interesting court case that took place in the 1960’s. Back in the 1950’s, there were two restaurants legally established each with the name “Burger King.” In this case, two businesses were contending for the right to exclusively use