Distinctiveness through Secondary Meaning

Every trademark has a tendency to identify the goods sold under them as emanating from a particular source. This tendency with the efflux of time gets strengthened and a particular trademark gets registered or mentally associated in the minds of the consumers as distinctive of the product and its source. It can also be referred as ‘strength’ of the mark. Some trademarks are distinct from their inception due to their inherent characters and they are given legal protection immediately upon use as a trademark. Thus there is a correlation between ‘strength’ and ‘secondary meaning’ of a trademark. A non-inherently distinctive mark must have that quantum of strength or secondary meaning to qualify as trademark. In litigation the determination of whether there is an infringement requires an evaluation of the strength of that trademark hence the secondary meaning for a non-inherently distinctive mark is a threshold issue of trademark validity.