A short post to start on one of the most crucial questions! Perhaps not. But is it trademark or trade mark?
What is the right way to spell Trade Mark? That’s the right way to spell it up to now in the English legal world. And that includes us here in Ireland. So, we have the Trade Marks Act 1996 and the Trade Marks Rules, 1996. UK trademark law is governed by its Trade Marks Act, 1994. The current EU Community trademark Regulation is Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark. But, there’s more.
In the US, the USPTO and federal trademark laws use the word Trademarks. As in the movies and so much more in life, the American is becoming more commonly used here, in the UK and the rest of the World.
For any Canadians out there, you use Trade-Marks and that’s not common anywhere!
Some countries also use the term ‘Service Marks’. That’s just a way to say trade marks that fall within class 35 to 45 of the Nice Classification of goods and services which is used to designate what types of goods and services your trademark will be put in use for.
In reality, it’s all the same and we here in TMR Fitzsimons are probably closer to Boston than Berlin on this one. That’s why we are solicitors and trademark agents. ~ Michael Fitzsimons
