Every entrepreneur is often confused by how they should protect their brands. In order to solve this query, it is very important to understand what is a brand?
Basically, a brand is a visual representation that companies use in order to distinguish their own products from that of the others. Brands are considered as one of the most important and valuable assets as it represents the face of the company.
Once a company through its brand has created positive sentiment among the public the firm is said to have built brand equity. Some of the leading examples of brand equity are Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Apple, Facebook, etc. So it is very important for any person before starting a business should trademark a word and a logo in order to prevent its competitor from infringing the said word or logo.
The wordmark simply refers to the name of the company or brand. They are mostly font based and are focused on the name of the company or business.
So leading companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, BMW or Microsoft, have a trademark for their business name which is in text format and hence is known as a wordmark.
In case of trademark of a word which already existing trademark with the same name but in a different sector, the said mark will still, provided the proposed trademark should not confuse the public.
But in case of the name of a popular company, for example, McDonald’s then there is no chance that the said mark will be approved even if the application is restricted to an industry McDonald’s is not into.
The term logo refers to images or texts that indicate the name and purpose of the business. When an owner uses a logo to differentiate its product, then it is known as Logo Mark.
A logo is defined as one which differentiates a particular product from the rest of the products in the market.
A Composite Mark, on the other hand, is a combination of, i.e. the logo contains the name of the brand as in the case of Coca-Cola and BMW. Levi’s has an elaborate logo composite mark which includes even the position of its labels on the jeans.
S.No
Word
Logo Mark
Logo
Composite Mark
1.
The wordmark refers to the name registered for business.
So if the leading companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, BMW or Microsoft has trademarked only the word, then it is said to be known as a wordmark.
The term logo mark refers to images, texts or images that indicate the name and purpose of the business.
Composite Mark is defined as a logo, which also includes the name of the brand.
2.
Example: Parle-G
Example: Apple
Example: Coca-Cola