Sound trademark

A sound trademark is a trademark where sound is used to perform the trademark function of uniquely identifying the commercial origin of products or services.

In recent times, sounds have been increasingly used as trademarks in the marketplace. However, it has traditionally been difficult to protect sounds as trademarks through registration, as a sound was not considered to be a 'trademark'. This issue was addressed by the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which broadened the legal definition of trademark to encompass "any sign...capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertaking" (article 15(1)).

Despite the recognition which must be accorded to sound trademarks in most countries, the graphical representation of such marks sometimes constitutes a problem for trademark owners seeking to protect their marks, and different countries have different methods for dealing with this issue.

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a recognizable sign, design, or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others, although trademarks used to identify services are usually called service marks. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. For the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are being displayed on company buildings.

Usage

A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service. Trademarks can be licensed to others; for example, Bullyland obtained a license to produce Smurf figurines; the Lego Group purchased a license from Lucasfilm in order to be allowed to launch Lego Star Wars; TT Toys Toys is a manufacturer of licensed ride-on replica cars for children. The unauthorized usage of trademarks by producing and trading counterfeit consumer goods is known as brand piracy.

The owner of a trademark may pursue legal action against trademark infringement. Most countries require formal registration of a trademark as a precondition for pursuing this type of action. The United States, Canada and other countries also recognize common law trademark rights, which means action can be taken to protect an unregistered trademark if it is in use. Still common law trademarks offer the holder in general less legal protection than registered trademarks.

Trademark (computer security)

A Trademark in computer security is a contract between code that verifies security properties of an object and code that requires that an object have certain security properties. As such it is useful in ensuring secure information flow. In object-oriented languages, trademarking is analogous to signing of data but can often be implemented without cryptography.

Operations

A trademark has two operations ApplyTrademark! and VerifyTrademark?.

ApplyTrademark!(object)

This operation is analogous to the private key in a digital signature process, so must not be exposed to untrusted code. It should only be applied to immutable objects, and makes sure that when VerifyTrademark? is called on the same value that it returns true.

VerifyTrademark?(object)

This operation is analogous to the public key in a digital signature process, so can be exposed to untrusted code. Returns true if-and-only-if, ApplyTrademark! has been called with the given object.

Relationship to taint checking

Trademark (band)

Trademark are an English band, formed in 1995, and consisting of Oliver Horton, Stuart Meads and Paul Soulsby (who joined in 1999). They are noted for predominantly using synthesizers and are often branded as electropop or synthpop (and for a short time "Oddball Labcoat Pop"). They have played live regularly since 2002 and over the years their shows have included science lectures, illuminated labcoats, giant perspex bottom-plugs and slide projections. They were signed to Truck Records in 2004 and released their second album, Raise The Stakes, in April 2007.

History

Trademark was formed around the time of 1995 by two teenage cousins Oliver Horton and Stuart Meads. They had previously played music together as children, under the names The Sheep and Technobeat. By their mid teens they wanted to formulate themselves as a group. In 1999 the pair were joined by Paul Soulsby.

A successful gig at the 2002 Truck Festival (where Trademark were noted as being the only band without guitars) led to a series of performances in Oxford. The band also played regularly in London, with a few appearances at The Fan Club at The Verge in Kentish Town. As the band's reputation grew, Trademark supported Chicks on Speed at Oxford Zodiac, and The Human League at Ocean in London. "Fear : Disconnnection" was finished in January 2003, and was sold by the band at gigs and over the website.