Trademarks are the unique identifiers of a product or service. Trademark use is governed by the terms of use of the Trademark Office. The purpose of the Trademark Office is to protect the public interest and to protect the brand of the trademark holder.
Trademark use and registration is governed by the Trademark Act of 1946. The Act defines trademark as the name or mark used by a person to identify his goods or services. The Trademark Office is charged with the responsibility of registering trademarks, as well as registering and enforcing the rights of trademark holders.
The Trademark Act of 1946 has a few sections that are relevant to this discussion. First, the Office is authorized to register trademarks for a period of five years. If someone files a trademark application after the five year period has run, the trademark is considered “valid” and may be registered by the Office. Secondly, the Office is authorized to register a mark that is in common use on or after 1 July 1990.
The registration of trademarks is a process. If you register a mark for a period of five years, then the mark is treated as trademark on the mark’s last sale. The mark’s last sale is treated as a trademark. If you are not registered with the Office, then the mark is considered invalid for five years.
If the mark remains on the mark, it’s considered invalid and is therefore not registered on the mark. The mark has been registered for some time and its new owner is not the real owner. Now, if the mark remains on the mark, then it’s considered invalid for five years.
What you’re looking at now is the trademark registration for the mark “Good For Five Years”. The trademark is valid and registered on the mark for five years. If the mark remains on the mark, its valid and registered for five years.
I like this term, it makes a lot of sense. When you have a trademark, you can sell a limited number of prints of your mark to the public, and you do so for a number of years. At the end of those five years, you can continue with the registration to sell them to other parties. So at that point you have a new registration for the mark.
It may not be pretty, but this is a great way to get you to see your mark.
You can get around this by using a “first party” trademark. These are registered to the original company. There are a couple of ways to go about this. The first is to have a company that is not registered to use the mark, but is the primary manufacturer. That way you can get around this problem by having the primary manufacturer continue to use the mark in marketing and other ways.