Trademark symbols

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McDonald’s Twitter account on March 8, 2018

Today is International Women’s Day. As a way to celebrate, McDonald’s has flipped their iconic golden arches upside-down. The arches, one of the most recognizable logos, have been physically flipped in one California location but can be seen on McDonald’s social media channels. Putting aside the effort to flip the California sign, by simply rotating its logo on social media McDonald’s was able, whether intended or not, to accomplish several marketing and advertising objectives. First, the move helped bring further awareness to an inspiring campaign; a great way to enhance brand identity and perception. Second, it created plenty of buzz and free publicity with news outlets in the U.S. and around the world picking up the story. Third, while the change was significant enough for people to take notice, it was not significant enough to cause any brand confusion. That is, consumers could still quickly identify the source.

This move serves as a great reminder that companies can use their brand identity, including their logos and other trademarks, in creative new ways to accomplish a variety of goals. Today, McDonald’s has helped to make sure that International Women’s Day and its objectives are a part of our global conversation. I’m loving it and I’m sure McDonald’s is too.

The short answer is that ™ is supposed to mean someone just thinks something is a trademark. ® is supposed to mean that a government trademarking authority has agreed that it could be a trademark and has issued a registration certificate.

Registered trademark in a red background
Copyright: silvia / 123RF Stock Photo

Getting your trademark registered by a government trademarking authority always takes time and money. It is fitting that at the end of the process, if you are successful, you will receive a certificate that looks almost like a graduation certificate. In the United States, the paper certificate bears a gold embossed seal. And you deserve it! You spent time, money and often had to prove to skeptical bureaucrats the worth of your brand.

If you jump through these hoops, it can be irritating to see others wrongly proclaim that their trademark is registered with the registration symbol ® when they have not. But you can only take action against this misuse if you can prove the  symbol misuser did so deliberately–that it intended to deceive or mislead the public or the USPTO. This can be tricky to show.

For example, last month the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board dismissed an opposition in which the owners of two similar trademarks (FACETS versus PHACET) fought over which one used and had the right to register its trademark for software. The company applying for  the FACETS registration had successfully registered FACETS for several types of services but had not yet been granted a registration for the trademark in connection with software (the trademark had been registered a number of years ago for software but that registration had expired). Despite that, it used the registration symbol with the trademark In SEC filings to describe not only its services (correctly, since they had registered) but also its software (allegedly fraudulently because FACETS was not currently registered for software).

SEC filings are sworn statements but that’s not enough to make them evidence of symbolic fraud in the TTAB’s eyes, at least in this case.