Trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing your goods or services from those of other competitors. It can be nearly anything that can suit this definition such as word, image, drawing, video, animation, symbol, logo, three dimensional character or object, sound or even colors shades.

If you manage to register your trademark it means you have been granted exclusive rights to your trademark within the certain territory. Trademark registration is always performed by some authority – state office. Long story short, registered trademark allows you to exclude others from using your trademark without your prior consent. This exclusivity is however granted only within the scope of goods or services for which trademark is registered.

Yes, in most countries, in order to be protected by local laws, trademark must be registered by the state authority. However some countries have established limited protection for unregistered trademarks if the certain conditions are met.

The trademark protection does not automaticaly arises once you create your sign as it is in copyright protection system. But in some cases copyright protection may also apply as the various sign or at least their expressions meet the criteria of copyrightable work.

As the territorial principle applies here, the protection is only granted within the country in which you have registered your trademark. Exception from this are the regional trademark systems where your trademark registration is valid throughout the territory of all member states of that regional union. And yes, that suddenly means you are not protected by your Japan trademark in the Brasil, unless you obtain international designation for both countries or register national trademark in both of them.

Some conditions for trademark registration may vary from country to country, but these are the main principles applicable nearly everywhere in the world.

The sign you are willing to register as trademark shall be capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one competitor from those of other competitors and it shall also be able to clearly determine precise subject matter of the scope of protection.

Futher requirements are that trademark shall consists of distinctive and non-descriptive sign. Many states and unions have a lot of exclusions from what can be trademarked.

Trademark can be registered on national, regional and international level.

Once your trademark is registered you have exclusive right to authorize everyone else for using your trademarked goods or services in business manner. That includes selling or distributing your trademarked goods or services.

The registered trademark protection in most countries of the world lasts for 10 years from the date on which your trademark application was filed. However, in most countries you can renew it for additional 10 years. This can be done repeatedly so it means the trademark protection can be potentially valid for indefinite amount of time.

There are various ways of monetizing your registered trademark. Two main options are that you either use your registered trademark to get competitive edge in your market area and second is that you sell your registered trademark to someone who can use it as his competitive edge. Another very popular option is to licence your registered trademark to someone else and gain passive income regularly.

You can trademark your invention name for instance, however invention itself can not be trademarked as it does not suit the trademark definition. To protect your invention you shall seek a different kind of intellectual property protection such as industrial design registration, patent or utility patent registration.