Does a beautifully designed trademark makes a good trademark? Not necessarily. In this article, we will analyze from the legal point of view that what are the elements of a good trademark to effectively help the development of the business and discuss how to plan and design a good trademark.

What makes a good trademark?

A good trademark not only serves as a business symbol, but also as a dialogue between consumers and the brand, resulting in greater benefits for the brand's marketing. Although there are many different types of trademarks, including animation, sound, and three-dimensional shapes, etc., most trademarks are formed by words and graphics.

Requirements for a good trademark

The most basic element of a good trademark is “distinctiveness”, if there is lack of distinctiveness, it is almost impossible to be registered as a trademark in accordance with the law.

How to determine whether a trademark is distinctive or not?

Distinctiveness, in other words, is the degree of recognition. A trademark has to be recognizable for consumers to tell the difference between different brands. However, if the trademark is based on descriptions or descriptive words, it is likely to be lack of distinctiveness and the trademark application will not be accepted.

How to design a distinctive trademark?

Trademarks that are distinctive can be categorized into three types:

Uniqueness
A unique trademark features a completely self-created word or phrase rather than an existing word or phrase, and has the advantage of being the most distinctive, and is used by many leading industries. For example, “Google” is used for search engine services.

Arbitrariness
Arbitrary trademarks are formed by existing words, but the words are not related to the goods/services themselves, which has the advantage of being easier to be known and memorized. For example, “Amazon” is used for online shopping services.

Suggestiveness
Suggestive trademark refers to the connection of certain elements of a trademark with the goods/services. The advantage is that people can understand the nature or features of the goods/services through the mark, but in general, it can maintain the distinctiveness rather than merely describing the goods/services.